AINING THE 
EVOTIONAL LIFE 



WEIGLEv- TWEEDY 




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Training 
The Devotional Life 



BY 

LUTHER ALLAN WEIGLE 

IORACE BUSHNELL PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN NURTURE 

YALE UNIVERSITY 



HENRY HALLAM TWEEDY 

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICAL THEOLOGY 
YALE UNIVERSITY 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 

{Department Educational Publications) 
BOSTON CHICAGO 






^V 



CoPYRionT 1^19 
By A. W. FELL 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

APR 25 1919 
©O.A5153S3 



CONTENTS 

Lesson Page 

I. The Meaning of Worship 261 

II. Teaching Children to Pray: In the Home 271 

III. Teaching Children to Pray: In the School 280 

IV. Worship in Music and Song 289 

V. The Devotional Use of the Bible 300 

VI. The Memorization of Worship Materials 308 

VII. Worship in the Church School 318 

VIII. Family Worship 329 

IX. Church Worship 338 

X. The Goal of Devotional Training 346 

Lessons 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7 have been written by Professor Weigle; 
Lessons 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10 by Professor Tweedy. 



TRAINING 
THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

LESSON I 
THE MEANING OF WORSHIP 

1. Training in worship is an essential element in 

THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF OUR CHILDREN. It IS not 

enough that they be taught about God and about the issues 
of life, nor even that they be trained in Christian ways of 
living. They must be brought into the presence of God. 
They must learn to know Him for themselves. They 
must be helped to seek Him and to find Him, and to experi- 
ence the joy of His love and grace. 

We have always known this; but we have not always 
planned for it as we might, nor accomplished it as we should. 
We have too often assumed that instruction is the founda- 
tion, if not the whole, of education, both in religion and in 
other aspects of life. The teaching methods of our schools, 
both secular and religious, have been primarily, sometimes 
almost wholly, intellectual. We have thought that if we 
impart to our children right ideas about God and duty, 
their practise of love toward God and man will follow as a 
matter of course. 

Our conception of education in general, however, has 
been changing. Schools have come closer to life and have 
developed more practical ways of teaching. Laboratory 
and manual methods, group work and social projects have 
made them places where children may indeed " learn by 
doing." And the intellectual education of their pupils 
261 



262 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

has not suffered thereby, but has gained in scope and zest. 
The life of the school has become less formal and more real. 

The Sunday school has begun to share in this better 
understanding of the aims and methods of education. 
Religion too may be best taught by practising it. To 
instruction, therefore, the Sunday school has added worship 
and service as essential elements of its educational program. 
This is not to imply a relative neglect of the intellectual 
side of its work. The Sunday school of today should afford 
more thorough instruction than the ungraded school of a 
generation ago. But its program is more complete. It 
provides for expression as well as for impression. It seeks 
definitely and systematically to develop within its pupils 
the active attitudes and habits of Christian living and 
Christian worship. 

This book deals with the elementary principles of Chris- 
tian worship, and undertakes to set forth some of the 
methods whereby children may be trained in such worship, 
to the upbuilding of their devotional life. It is addressed 
primarily to Sunday-school teachers, and aims to help them 
prepare themselves for this aspect of their work. But, 
just because training in Christian worship is peculiarly a 
matter in which home and church must unite with the 
school, it addresses itself quite as directly to parents and 
to pastors. In no phase of religious education is there 
more need and larger opportunity for team-work than in 
this. 

2. What is worship? It is more than merely thinking 
about God, or feeling reverent toward Him, or even seeking 
to do what we believe to be His will. It is a personal 
approach to God. It is our attempt to express ourselves 
to Him in whatever ways we deem possible and appro- 
priate. It seeks to communicate to Him our attitudes, to 
establish intercourse with Him, to enter into as direct 



THE MEANING OF WORSHIP 263 

fellowship with Him as we can. The heart of worship is 
prayer. 

This conception of worship may be made clearer by stat- 
ing explicitly certain of its implications : 

(1) In worship God is the object of conscious attention. 
That is the distinguishing characteristic of worship as con- 
trasted with work. When one works his attention is 
centered upon his task and upon the means to its ac- 
complishment; when he worships his attention is directed 
to God. 

(2) In worship God is directly addressed. That is the 
difference between worship and thought. It is important 
that we think about God and observe His works and ways, 
and that we arrive at as clear and true convictions concern- 
ing Him as we can. But such thinking is not in itself 
worship. Worship seeks acquaintance with God, not 
merely knowledge about God. Its language is that of the 
second person. It does not think or speak of God as Him; 
it addresses God as Thou. 

(3) Worship engages the whole person. It involves a 
movement of intellect and will toward God, as well as 
loving Him and feeling His presence. It is not primarily 
a matter of emotion. When we approach a friend in 
intercourse and fellowship, it is with intelligence and good- 
will as well as with affection. So with our approach to 
God. It involves the whole man. 

3. The elements of worship. It may be objected 
that worship has been defined too narrowly by thus identify- 
ing it with prayer. Does not the public worship of the 
church, at least, include other elements — hymns, the 
reading of Scripture, the recital of a creed, sermon, offering, 
the rite of Baptism, the observance of the Lord's Supper? 

These are indeed properly regarded as elements of Chris- 
tian worship. Yet in all the idea of prayer, as intercourse 



264 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

with God, is central. The correlate of prayer, our approach 
to God, is revelation, God's Word to us. And all these 
elements pertain to one side or the other of that intercourse. 
They embody either the Word of God to man or an expres- 
sion of man's attitude toward God. 

We shall be helped to understand the whole experience 
of worship, and the relation of these elements, if we dis- 
tinguish in it three stages, and undertake to describe sepa- 
rately: (1) Preparation for Worship; (2) the Act of Wor- 
ship; (3) the Realization of Worship. 

4. Preparation for worship. To this stage belong all 
the means whereby we seek to set our minds upon God and 
to bring ourselves into the atmosphere of His presence. 

(1) Negatively, we withdraw attention from other things. 
We check the current of habitual ideas and occupations. 
We shut out the intrusions of sense, that our minds may be 
free, undistracted, to dwell upon God. We seek environ- 
mental conditions that will help, rather than hinder, in 
this respect. 

(2) Positively, we center our attention upon God. We 
call to mind our fundamental convictions concerning Him. 
We think over His revelation of Himself in nature and in 
human history — most of all, in Jesus Christ. We seek 
to realize His presence and to understand His will. And we 
take counsel with ourselves concerning our own lives and 
their relation to Him. We evaluate our desires in the light 
of His character and purposes. We bring our ideals to 
the touchstone of their perfect fulfilment in Him. 

This thought about God, if not itself worship, is a most 
important and almost indispensable preparation for wor- 
ship. " Suitably clad externally, but mentally clogged 
with a thousand irrelevant thoughts, I go to visit a friend. 
To be worthy of this friendship I must first cleanse and 
disenthrall myself by full imaginative recall of that friend's 



THE MEANING OF WORSHIP 265 

life and my relation to it." 1 This is even more true of our 
friendship and intercourse with God. 

There is devotional value, then, in whatever means we 
find helpful to this " imaginative recall " of God, in what- 
ever brings about a clearer knowledge of God and a height- 
ened consciousness of His presence. This is a function, 
in public worship, of the reading of Scripture, the hearing 
of a sermon, the singing of hymns, the recital of articles of 
faith. 

(3) Morally, we fit ourselves for worship by all that goes 
into the upbuilding of character — by forsaking evil de- 
sires and wrong deeds, by cleaving to the good, and by 
patient, unselfish, loving devotion to the service of God 
and our fellow-men. No man careless in conduct and 
unfaithful to conscience, cherishing petty indulgences and 
set upon his own selfish ends, can experience the best in 
human friendship. How can such a man understand God 
or find happiness in His presence? He is disqualified for 
worship, as for any great human service, at a fundamental 
point. He cannot love aright. 

5. The act of worship is prayer. One can find no 
better statement of the nature of prayer than that made by 
Clement of Alexandria over seventeen hundred years ago: 
" Prayer is conversation and intercourse with God." 2 It 
has been almost precisely repeated in our own day by 
William James, who, at the close of his profoundly suggestive 
study of " The Varieties of Religious Experience," defines 
prayer as " every kind of inward communion or conversa- 
tion with the power recognized as divine." 3 

But how shall one converse with God? Shall we express 
ourselves to Him in words, as we do to one another? It 



1 Quoted from Ella Lyman Cabot in R. C Cabot: What Men Live By, p. 281. 
' Stromata vii, 242 d, translated in Ante- Nicene Fathers, Vol. II, p. 534. 
8 W. James: The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 464. 



266 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

is clear that we need not address Him audibly, for " all 
things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with 
whom we have to do," and He is " quick to discern the 
thoughts and intents of the heart." " There is not a 
word in my tongue," says the Psalmist, " but lo, Lord, 
thou knowest it altogether." 

We need not shape our prayers even mentally into lan- 
guage. They may mean quite as much to us, and carry 
quite as well to God, without being put into words at all, 
even within our own minds. We do the larger part of our 
every-day thinking, as a matter of fact, in terms of other 
than verbal imagery. A succession of mental pictures 
passes before the mind's eye, and we discern the facts and 
relationships involved in these pictures as immediately 
and directly as we would discern these facts were they 
concretely present to our physical vision. So it may be 
with prayer. The intercession that we make for the 
welfare of a friend, for example, may take the inward form 
simply of the presentation of a mental picture of that 
friend in danger or temptation, without our saying within 
ourselves a word about him; yet that mental picture may 
clearly mean to us a prayer, and that meaning will be fully 
intelligible to the God who understands our thoughts. 

Worship is, then, a deed of the spirit. Its language is 
not limited to words, which can at best but imperfectly 
express the deepest aspirations and affections of the human 
heart. We may express ourselves to God by any move- 
ment toward Him of thought and feeling and will — most 
of all, by a life dedicated to His service. 

It would be a great mistake, however, to conclude that 
the putting of prayers into words is useless or unimportant. 
There are two chief reasons why it is of great value. First, 
because prayers fitly expressed in language, audible or 
written, have social as well as personal value. We can 



THE MEANING OF WORSHIP 267 

help others to pray, and be helped by others, largely be- 
cause we can put our prayers into words. And this is not 
a thing to be regarded lightly, if one would gain the full 
spirit and value of worship. The man who is habitually 
silent in prayer will more easily slip into narrowness of out- 
look and selfishness of petition than he who enters, however 
haltingly, into the fellowship of God's people as they to- 
gether approach Him. 

The second reason why it is profitable to put prayers 
into words, is that the effort to do so may clarify one's 
thought and help to keep his attention directed to God. 
Here again, what is true of all thinking is true of prayer. 
So long as we think in terms merely of a succession of 
mental pictures, we may easily beguile ourselves with vague 
impressions and unclear convictions. But when we under- 
take to put our thoughts into words, especially if it be for 
sake of communicating them to another person, we become 
clear as to just what we really do think. So the expression 
of prayer in words detains the mind in worship, holds the 
attention upon God, and helps us to know just what our 
real aspirations are. Even silent prayer may with advan- 
tage be put into inward words. " I rarely allow myself to 
pray quite silently in secret," said Bishop Moule. " For 
myself, I find the wanderings of the mind very much 
limited and controlled by even the faintest audible utter- 
ance of thought." 1 

What shall one say to God in prayer? That cannot be 
determined by rule, any more than can the content of one's 
intercourse with his friend. Prayer is a personal matter. 
Each of God's children is free to express himself to his 
Father, as his situation gives occasion and his spirit prompts. 

Yet there are elemental, dominant notes in prayer which 



1 H. C G. Moule: All in Christ, quoted in J. Hastings: The Christian Doctrine of 
Prayer, p. 447. 



268 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

tend to be universal. Just as certain elements enter nat- 
urally into the intercourse of friends or into the fellowship 
of children with their parents, these are the natural ele- 
ments of our intercourse with God. They are Adoration, 
Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication, and Submission. 1 

(1) Adoration. The Lord's Prayer begins with adora- 
tion: " Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy 
name." One's primary impulse, as his mind turns to 
God, is to bow before Him in reverent awe and affection. 
It is God's character that impresses us first of all — His 
majesty, power and holiness, His infinite greatness and His 
unfathomable love. Contemplating Him, we are lifted 
out of ourselves, and our hearts go forth in answering 
affection and in the fervent desire that all the world may 
know His glory and with us magnify His name. 

(2) Confession. Yet we have failed Him many times. 
In light of His character our own frailty stands revealed. 
We confess to Him our sins, not simply in general but in 
particular; we repent and ask forgiveness; and we seek 
His help as we dedicate ourselves to Him in new obedience 
and press on to that more abundant life which we cannot 
attain without Him. 

(3) Thanksgiving. We have had His help all our days. 
Life itself and every good has come from Him. Our sense 
of ill-desert but deepens the confident joy with which we 
contemplate His past and present mercies and look forward 
to future experiences of His love and care. 

(4) Supplication. As children to a Father, we bring to 
Him our wants and desires, knowing that He will grant 
them if He can, in the light of our own best interest and the 
highest good of His creation as a whole. The element of 



1 1 owe this analysis of the dominant notes in prayer to instruction received in child- 
hood from my father. I yet remember the mnemonic device which he gave with it: 
" You can remember it by thinking of the word ' Acts,' spelled with a double S — 
ACTSS." 



THE MEANING OF WORSHIP 269 

Supplication in prayer is conceived by some as divisible 
into two elements: Petition, what one asks for himself, 
and Intercession, what he asks for others. The distinction 
is of doubtful value. Practically, it is almost impossible 
to make it; theoretically, it but leads to the unnecessary 
perplexities which some persons feel concerning the value 
of intercessory prayer. No one who enters wholesomely 
into the full social relations of our common human life, and 
who has caught the spirit of the Master, can fail to feel the 
good of others as a personal desire. 

(5) Submission. God knows best. All true prayer, 
therefore, is in the spirit of Jesus: " Nevertheless not my 
will, but thine, be done." This is not submission to the 
arbitrary decrees of an autocrat. It is simple filial recogni- 
tion of the love and wisdom of a Father who knows the 
desires of every other of His children as well as He does our 
own, and who in the light of His perfect knowledge plans 
for the highest good of us all. It is loyal enlistment with 
the Leader of all mankind, the Captain of our salvation. 

6. The realization of worship will be discussed more 
fully in the last chapter of this book. God takes account 
of our prayers. He answers them objectively, we believe, 
by an actual determination of the course of events which 
may be other than would have seemed to Him best had we 
not entered into fellowship with Him. He answers them 
subjectively, by granting us fuller experiences of His presence 
and sustaining grace. 

The fruits of worship are as manifold as life itself, as rich 
as human experience, and as various as God's creative touch 
upon it. Worship helps us to know and love Him whom 
to know is life eternal. It brings insight and vision; it 
opens the mind to fresh truth and to a new understanding 
of familiar things. It begets wholeness and sanity. It 
mobilizes one's resources and gives strength and power. 



270 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

It makes available the infinite dynamic of God's own Spirit. 
It issues in unselfish activity and creative human service. 
Its full realization and its ultimate sanction are in a life 
that not only is " hid with Christ in God " but goes forth 
with Christ " not to be ministered unto but to minister." 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Why is it essential that children be given definite training in 
worship? 

2. Is your Sunday school giving such training in an effective way? 
What makes you think so? If not, why not? Name specific reasons. 

3. What is worship as distinguished from (1) thought about God 
(2) life and work in God's service? 

4. Distinguish and characterize three stages in the experience of 
worship. 

5. What are the functions and values of Scripture reading in the 
experience of worship? Of the singing of hymns? Of the recital of 
a creed? Of the offering? 

6. Do prayers need to be expressed in words? If so, why? If not, 
why not? 

7. Take several examples of forms of prayer, and analyze their domi- 
nant notes. 

8. Why is submission a vital element in all prayer? 

9. Does prayer have objective value in helping to determine the 
course of physical events? Give full reasons for your answer. 

10. Does prayer have subjective value in Christian experience? Give 
full reasons for your answer. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Cabot, Richard C. — " What Men Live By," Part IV. 
Fosdick, Harry E. — " The Meaning of Prayer." 
Hastings, James, ed. — " The Christian Doctrine of Prayer." 
Jones, Rufus M. — " The Inner Life "; " The World Within." 
McNeile, A. H. — " Self-Training in Prayer." 
Porter, David L. — " The Enrichment of Prayer." 
Scroggie, W. G. — " Method in Prayer." 
Slattery, Charles L. — " Why Men Pray." 

Streeter, B. H., et al. — " Concerning Prayer: Its Nature, Its Difficul- 
ties and Its Value." 



LESSON II 

TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY 

I. In the Home 

To teach a child to pray is the duty and privilege, in the 
first place, of the father and mother. A child's religion is 
rooted in the religious life of the family of which he is a 
dependent member. His ideas, habits and desires, concern- 
ing God as well as concerning things, are derived from the 
current spirit and practise of his home. And the father 
and mother should bring this spirit and practise to bear 
upon the lives of their children in ways not simply of un- 
conscious influence, fundamental and unfailing as that is, 
but of consciously educative purpose. 

In teaching their child to pray the father and mother 
will make use of five fundamental methods: (1) they will 
bring the child into the social atmosphere of prayer; (2) 
they will train him in habits of prayer; (3) they will teach 
him forms of prayer; (4) they will encourage him to ex- 
press himself to God in spontaneous prayers; (5) they will 
instruct him in the meaning of prayer. 

1. The social atmosphere of prayer. We teach 
children to pray by associating them with ourselves as we 
pray. In many homes, the beginning of family worship 
dates from the coming of the first child. It is easy, after 
marriage, for the young husband and wife simply to con- 
tinue their separate habits of devotion, without adding to 
these in their daily program the habit of approaching God 
together. It is a true instinct, in that case, that impels 
them, when their children begin to grow out of babyhood, 
to question one another whether the time has not come to 
establish family worship. 

271 



272 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

It were best, of course, to have begun earlier. A prac- 
tise of family worship, begun for sake of the children, is 
apt to have something of awkwardness and unreality about 
it, and so to fail. A practise begun, on the other hand, 
when the new home was first established, has now become 
natural; no self-consciousness clouds its genuineness or 
impedes its access to God. The parents have already 
constituted themselves a family before God. The home 
is as well prepared in its spiritual habit as in material 
provision to receive and to nurture the new life that is given 
into the parents' care. 

It is a great mistake, moreover, to suppose that children 
are not influenced by their social environment until they 
are able to understand and use language, or that they are 
not susceptible to religious impressions until they can be 
instructed about God. On the contrary, it is only because 
they have been influenced by social environment that they 
ever pick up language at all; it is only in so far as they have 
been receiving religious impressions that they can attach 
meaning to the word " God." " Language has no meaning 
until rudimental impressions are first begotten in the life 
of experience, to give it a meaning," wrote Horace Bushnell 
in that notable chapter on " When and Where Christian 
Nurture Begins," 1 which every parent ought to read. 

It is natural that the first step in teaching a child to 
pray should be for the mother to pray for the child, in its 
presence, as she tucks it in at night. Mrs. Mumford has 
given so true a description of this first way of bringing the 
child into the social atmosphere of prayer that we quote it 
at length : 

11 The tiny baby, now a few months old, is lying awake 
in his cradle, ready for his evening sleep: his mother is 



'Horace Bushnell: Christian Nurture, 1916 edition, p. 203. 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: HOME 273 

kneeling beside him, her head reverently bowed, her hand 
holding his in her warm, soft clasp. She is praying to 
God — praying that He will care for her baby through the 
coming night, care for him in the coming years of youth and 
manhood. The touch of her hand, the sound of her voice, 
the sight of her face, as she kneels there, from the first, 
in some dim way, vaguely modify the contents of his little 
mind — even though, as yet, he can understand nothing 
of what it all means. Still, as each night she prays; as 
each night, month after month, this same group of sense 
impressions has been passively received in his baby brain, 
invariably registered, then unconsciously analysed and 
compared, gradually the group, as a whole, stands out in 
his mind with a certain degree of definiteness. . . . When 
his mother prays, her attitude, her tone of voice, her ex- 
pression of face, the very touch of her hand, are different 
from what they are at any other time and under any other 
circumstances : and to this difference the child instinctively 
responds. Silently and unconsciously, her reverence, her 
love, communicated to him, in some strange and exquisite 
way, along the chords of human sympathy, call forth in 
him, almost from the first, feelings akin to her own. What 
she feels, he, too, begins to feel: and a child is capable of 
religious feeling, long before he is capable of religious 
thought." 1 

As the child grows older and enters with increasing 
intelligence, freedom and good-will into the life of the family 
and into other social relations, the ways multiply in which, 
through personal association with others, he may learn to 
pray. When he is old enough to take prayers upon his own 
lips, wise parents will kneel with him, that he may pray 
with them rather than say his prayers to them. In due 
time, he will have place and part in family worship; he 
will go with his parents to worship in the church; and 
he will share in the worship of various social groups of 
which he finds himself a member. 

1 E. E. R. Mumford: The Dawn oj Religion, pp. 9-12. 



274 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

2. Beginning the habit of prayer. Among the many 
helpful things in Miss Chenery's story " As the Twig is 
Bent " is the mother's account of the training of her children 
in religion. It begins thus: 

" When Margery was about two, I taught her to say a 
little prayer and had her repeat it every night on going to 
bed. ' God bless Margery,' — that was all at first; but 
I showed her how to kneel, and she understood that the 
prayer was always to come before lying down for the 
night. Of course the name God meant nothing to her, 
and the three words together nothing at all. My only 
idea was to have her begin to pray so early that it would 
be second nature to her to say her evening prayer and in- 
deed that she should not be able to recall a time when she 
did not say it." 1 

This is the second step in teaching children to pray. 
As soon as a child has learned to talk well enough to frame 
short sentences, his mother should encourage him to say 
his own prayer to God, and should furnish him with a brief 
form of words for that purpose. She thus begins to train 
the child in the habit of prayer. 

It has been objected that this is a mistaken procedure. 
The child cannot yet understand what he is doing, it is 
admitted; he knows nothing about God, and has no inward 
motive for addressing Him. Better wait, therefore, is the 
counsel of some, until he learns enough about God to want 
to say something to Him. 

The answer to this objection is that the education of 
children in general begins with doing rather than with 
understanding. Speaking, reading, writing, figuring, good 
manners and moral habits — all these they acquire by 
practise. So they may acquire the habit of prayer, profit- 
ing in this as in other things from the experience of older 
folk who have gone the way of life before them. Their 

1 Susan Chenery: As the Twig is Bent, p. 143. 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: HOME 275 

understanding of God will develop in due time, and will be 
quite as much a result as a condition of their growth in 
prayer., 

3. Forms of prayer. The form of words in which the 
child's prayer is cast will at first be determined by the 
parents, of course. And throughout the whole of childhood, 
they should continue to furnish him with forms which may 
fitly serve both to express his present needs and to awake 
him to new and higher aspirations. 

The jvalue of such forms in the education of children is 
clear. Through them the child enters into his spiritual 
heritage, and avails himself of the wider experience of his 
elders. " Lord, teach us to pray," asked the disciples of 
Jesus; and he answered by giving them a form which has 
for us, as it had for them, high educative value. The 
Lord's Prayer did more than put into words aspirations 
that they already felt; it helped to lift them to higher levels 
of desire. It was a lesson in motives, in inward spirit and 
attitude, quite as much as in expression. So parents, who 
furnish their children from time to time with forms of 
prayer, not only train them in appropriate ways of express- 
ing themselves to God, but may help them to grow in 
thought and feeling, to understand more about God and to 
know Him better. 

There are dangers in the use of such forms, be it admitted. 
A form that is too far beyond the child's present knowledge 
and desire will lack meaning to him, and may foster in- 
sincerity. Forms set upon too low a level may become 
limitations, prisoning his aspirations instead of setting 
them free. Repetition may in time empty a form of inward 
meaning. The child's habit of prayer may become me- 
chanical, his forms of prayer mere forms, without real 
content of idea or desire. 

If these dangers are to be avoided, and forms of prayer 



276 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

to be of full educative value in the life of a child, two coun- 
sels must be carefully observed : 

(1) There should be, from time to time, a revision of the 
child's forms of prayer. As he comes to understand more 
about God and about life, as his powers develop and his 
interests expand, his growth in prayer should keep pace 
with the rest of his development. His old prayer-forms 
should be revised, and new ones furnished him. Better 
yet, he should be encouraged to devise new forms of prayer 
for his own use, and to cooperate with his parents in the 
revision and expansion of the old forms. 

(2) Parents siiould concern themselves with the child's 
preparation for worship, as well as with the act of worship 
itself. As soon as the child can understand in some mea- 
sure, the parents should tell him about God, not byway of 
formal instruction, but in the free intimacy of home con- 
versation and in the happy confidences of the story hour. 
And instead of simply ordering the child to " say his 
prayers " when she puts him to bed at night, the mother 
will take a few moments to talk the day over with him, 
to anticipate the morrow, and to remind him of God's 
presence and care. She attempts the impossible if she 
hurries him through the process of undressing, in an atmos- 
phere of protest rather than of worship, then suddenly 
commands him to pray. 

4. Spontaneous prayers. A natural result of the 
child's preparation for worship will be that his desire to 
express himself to God will outrun the forms which have 
been given him. He will have things of his own to say to 
God. And the mother should by all means encourage such 
freedom in prayer. It is the first rudimentary appearance 
of that inward disposition of mind and heart and will 
which is the end at which all preliminary training in prayer 
has aimed. We fail utterly if we do not in time develop 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: HOME 277 

within the child both the impulse and the power to approach 
God for himself in independent prayer. 

The child's spontaneous prayers should at first be in 
addition to, rather than a substitute for, the forms of prayer 
which have become his daily habit. They should be really 
spontaneous, the free and honest expression to God of his 
own feelings and desires. They will reveal much to the 
listening mother — odd misconceptions sometimes or quaint 
strivings of childish desire, and now and then unsuspected 
depths of feeling and ranges of aspiration. 

Increasingly, as the child grows older, his spontaneous 
prayers will furnish the material for his education in prayer. 
It is all too easy, of course, for the child to lapse into mere 
habits of spontaneous petition, and thus to acquire ill- 
considered and inadequate forms of prayer, whose only 
virtue is that they rose in the first place from within the 
child himself. The parents will do all that they can 
to guard against this, as they guide the child's prepara- 
tion for worship, and as they talk with him about God and 
about the meaning of prayer. And they will encourage 
him to construct forms of prayer for himself that express 
the really dominant thoughts and desires of his life, rather 
than the chance aspirations of an hour or a day. They 
will seek to develop within him, in due time, full responsi- 
bility for his life of prayer as for his life of action, and will 
help him ultimately to become a man who is able to stand 
upon his own feet before God and to know Him for himself. 

5. Instruction in the meaning of prayer. The 
child's ideas concerning the meaning and value of prayer 
should not be left to be formed by practise alone. As 
soon as he begins to express himself in spontaneous prayer, 
his parents should talk with him, as occasion arises, about 
prayer itself, and help him to form right ideas concerning it. 

The misconceptions of prayer to which a child is most 



278 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

liable are: (1) to expect immediate answers, granting ful- 
filment of his wishes, especially for material things; (2) 
to regard prayer as a sort of magic talisman that wards off 
harm or as a price paid to God for His protection. There 
is an old story of a little girl who was reproached by her 
grandmother for not saying her prayers one evening, and 
answered: " No, and J didn't say them last night and I 
won't say them tomorrow night, and then if nothing hap- 
pens, I'll never say them again." We smile at the little 
sceptic; yet some of the older folk among us can remember 
the " prayer gauge " suggested in 1872, when Professor 
John Tyndall lent his name to a proposal to test the value 
of prayer by an experiment scarcely more sound or far- 
reaching than hers. 

Happily, the apperceptive basis for a truer understanding 
of the meaning of prayer lies well within the experience of a 
little child. Every child who is being brought up in the 
right sort of home knows what it is to be protected and 
provided for, not because of any payment that he can make 
in word or deed, but just because he belongs to a father and 
mother who love him; and every such child knows what it is 
to have wishes denied and requests refused because father 
and mother know best. So it is with all of us, for we are 
children of God. At bottom, the child's education in 
prayer depends upon the character of his father and mother 
and upon the quality of their life in relation to him. The 
fundamental question to every parent is this: Are you so 
living that your children may take your love and care and 
reasonable wisdom as the basis for their beginning to under- 
stand their Heavenly Father, and that their love for you and 
confidence in you may not unworthily serve as the type for 
their love of God and trust in Him? 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: HOME 279 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. What are some of the ways in which parents may bring their 
child into the social atmosphere of prayer? 

2. When and how begin the education of a child in prayer? 

3. How early should a child be taught to say his prayers? Why? 

4. What is the value of set forms of prayer? 

5. What dangers are involved in the use of such forms? How best 
guard against these dangers? 

6. From actual observation or memory, describe some examples of 
the spontaneous prayers of children. Analyze, if you can, the motives 
and experiences which underlay them. 

7. What do you think of the more or less common practise of telling 
to visitors, for their entertainment, odd or bright things that children 
say in their spontaneous prayers? 

8. What are some of the ways in which parents may encourage their 
child to spontaneous prayer, and educate him in it? 

9. Children's misconceptions of prayer, and how to meet them. 

10. Let some member of the class report upon the " Prayer Gauge " 
of 1872. See the Contemporary Review for July, August and October, 
1872, and January and February, 1873, or the volume entitled The 
Prayer Gauge Debate. The proposal was that the whole Christian 
world should pray, for a period of five years, for the patients in a 
given hospital, and see whether this united prayer made any differ- 
ence in the death-rate, as compared with other hospitals and with the 
mortality tables of insurance companies. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bradner, Lester. — Article on Children's Worship in Nelson's En- 
cyclopaedia of Sunday Schools and Religious Education. 

Chenery, Susan. — " As the Twig is Bent," ch. 13. 

Harrison, Elizabeth. — " A Study of Child Nature," ch. 8-9. 

Hodges, George. — " Training of Children in Religion," ch. 8-9. 

Mumford, E. E. R. — " The Dawn of Religion." 
Forms of prayer for childhood and youth: 

Beard, Frederica. — " Prayers for Home and School." 

Davis, Ozora. — " At Mother's Knee." 

Gannett, W. and M— " The Little Child at the Breakfast Table." 

Richards, T. C. — " Young Men and Prayer." 

Slattery, Margaret. — "A Girl's Book of Prayer." 

Verkuyl, Gerrit. — " Children's Devotions." 



LESSON III 

TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY 

II. In the School 

1. The duty of the Sunday-school teacher to teach 
children to pray is quite as real as that of parents, however 
different his opportunity may be. This is for two reasons: 

(1) Many children do not receive adequate training in 
prayer in their homes. It is happily true that teaching the 
children to say their prayers is in general the very last 
thing to be given up when a home grows lax in its practises 
of religious worship. In many homes that have no family 
prayers, that never give thanks to God for daily bread, and 
that bear no evidence of the private devotional habits of 
their older members, parents yet teach their children a 
form of prayer to be said before going to bed. That such 
training is far from adequate the last chapter has made 
clear; but it has some value. There are other homes that 
lack even this. 

(2) Even in the case of those children who are receiving 
careful training and education in prayer in their homes, the 
Sunday school has something to do that the home cannot do. 
It brings the child into the wider fellowship of a worship- 
ing group of children of his own age. And that means 
much for the expansion and development of his devotional 
life. It adds a dimension, and infuses a social spirit, that 
the more private and restricted worship of the family circle 
can hardly impart. 

Any parent who has observed the rapid expansion of the 

life and development of the mind of a six-year-old child 

during his first year in public school, understands what is 

meant by this. The Sunday school ought to render an 

280 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: SCHOOL 281 

analogous service. Dean Hodges has put the matter 
well in words that apply both to secular and to religious 
education : 

" The child who is taught only by his parents may be 
better informed, but he lacks the institutional and social 
spirit which is imparted in a good school. He is in peril 
of individualism, whose intellectual defect is narrowness, 
and whose religious defect is selfishness. . . . He may 
be like a soldier who has learned war by correspondence, 
and has never kept step with a file of men, nor obeyed the 
impersonal orders of a captain." 1 

2. The problem of the sunday-school teacher, 
facing a group of children of whom some are receiving 
adequate home education in prayer and some are not, may 
be stated in the words of a successful teacher of Beginners : 

" We have in the one case to develop a habit already 
started, but in the other case to start a habit that may 
encounter varying degrees of indifference at home. . . . 
Our problem is to take the children as they come to us on 
Sunday from whatever kind of homes and in the short hour 
a week to try to make prayer something more than the repeti- 
tion of words we choose to teach them. We want to estab- 
lish conscious fellowship between our pupils and the Heav- 
enly Father, a relationship that will grow and strengthen 
as the pupils grow in experience and knowledge." 2 

3. The methods of the sunday-school teacher are 
based upon the same principles as those of parents in the 
home. The teacher, too, will bring his pupils into the 
social atmosphere of prayer, train them in habits of prayer, 
teach them forms of prayer, encourage them to spontaneous 
prayer, and instruct them in the meaning of prayer. 

The particular ways, however, in which the teacher may 
fulfil these principles, are determined by his quite different 



1 George Hodges: The Training of Children in Religion, pp 219-220 
'Mary E. Rankin: A Course for Beginners in .Religious Education, p. 23. 
added. 



282 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

situation and relation to his pupils. He is the leader of a 
social group which has met for the specific purpose of 
learning about God and how to do His will. Practically 
the whole of the group's thought and conversation, con- 
cerned as it is with the divine relations of life, constitutes 
a preparation for worship. And it is but natural that the 
members of the group should turn from thinking and talk- 
ing about God to speak to Him, together, in prayer. 

What the group wishes to say to God may be expressed 
in any one of three ways : 

(1) The teacher may lead in prayer, expressing for the 
children, as best he can, their aspirations and desires. 
He may avail himself, for this purpose, of some one of the 
forms of prayer that have become the rich devotional 
heritage of the Christian Church; more often, doubtless, 
the form will be his own, arising out of the present situa- 
tion, and expressing the immediate needs and aspirations 
of the group. The great difficulty here, as Professor 
Hartshorne has well said, is that of really leading, so that 
all the members of the group will follow. To be able to do 
this requires preparation, as well as consecration, sympathy 
and good judgment. The following suggestions of Profes- 
sor Hartshorne are quite to the point: 

" Be short. Be simple. Be concrete. Be direct. Speak 
from the children's life, not from the adults' theology. 
Make the children feel that you are really talking with the 
Father and that they are saying to Him just what you are 
saying and that He is trying to say something to them." 1 

(2) The children may pray in unison. This involves the 
use of a form of prayer which all have learned. It should, 
in general, be repeated from memory rather than read. 

This method, properly used, has great value. It en- 
lists the active cooperation of every member of the group. 



1 Religious Education, October, 1914, p. 446. 



TEACHING CHILDRExN TO PRAY: SCHOOL 283 

The children feel their oneness in prayer ; and it seems more 
real to them than if the leader is the only one to speak aloud. 

Forms for this purpose must be provided by the teacher, 
of course. He will find some that are suitable in prayer- 
books and liturgies; but he will find it necessary to write 
out prayers of his own composing, to be used in this way. 
More than this, he will encourage the children themselves 
to write forms of prayer for the class to use. Each may 
bring his suggestions or his own written form, and after 
discussion and conference a form may be agreed upon which 
shall serve as the prayer of the class on certain occasions or 
during a given period. This form, then, all will memorize, 
that it may be used with freedom when the group desires so 
to express itself to God. Several such forms may be com- 
posed and committed to memory, for use on different 
occasions. And in the following year, new forms may be 
written, or the old forms revised. 

Especially successful training of this sort has been given 
in a number of the classes of the Union School of Religion, 
under the leadership of Professor Hartshorne. Miss Ran- 
kin reports the following kindergarten prayer, made up in 
class from the suggestions of the children themselves : 

" Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the springtime, 
that brings the warm sunshine and the rain, the green 
grass, flowers and birds. We thank Thee for watching 
over us. Help us to be kind, and to share with our friends 
everywhere the good things that Thou hast given to us. 
Amen." 1 

The following, again, was compiled from ten prayers sub- 
mitted for this purpose by a class of nine-year-old pupils: 

" Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy watchful 
care over Thy little children. Thou hast given us our 
homes and our parents, our schools and our teachers, our 



M. E. Rankin: A Course for Beginners in Religious Education, p. 26. 



284 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

friends and our plays, and all the wonderful world in which 
we live. 

" Forgive us that we so often forget Thee. We are sorry 
for our thoughtlessness and our unkindness. 

" Give us strong minds that we may think good thoughts; 
strong wills that we may resist temptation; and hearts 
ready to help others. May our class ever do its best and 
may every member of the school live to please Thee." 1 

(3) The teacher may ask one of the children to lead in prayer. 
One way, at first, is to ask the child to lead as all repeat 
together the Lord's Prayer, or to select some other from 
the forms which all know and to lead in its repetition. Or 
he may be asked to prepare a written prayer for use on a 
given Sunday, which he will read or repeat from memory, 
the rest of the children remaining silent as he thus voices 
their common petition. Later, he may be called upon to 
lead in prayers that are really extemporaneous. 

This is a difficult aspect of the teacher's work. There 
are parents who do not wish their children to be trained to 
" pray in public." And there are children who are over- 
eager and voluble, and other children who are bashful 
and sensitive. There must be no forcing, no undue pres- 
sure, no fostering of insincerity, no premature assumption 
of older ways. 

The difficulty is seen to be less great, however, when we 
remember that this education in prayer takes place within 
the little, intimate circle of a class group of children, who are 
being brought into a common understanding of the mean- 
ing of prayer and whose lesson material each Sunday may 
be so taught as to constitute a real apperceptive basis 
and preparation for prayer. In no other place, save in the 
home itself, will prayer seem more natural or is it more 
likely to be sincere. 



1 Religious Education, October, 1914, p. 448. 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: SCHOOL 285 

4. The teacher and the individual pupil. The aim 
of this social training in prayer is that individual boys and 
girls may grow to be men and women of genuine devotional 
life, whose prayers are independent, intelligent, sincere and 
full of power. The teacher should do all that he can, 
therefore, to help his pupils in their individual habits of 
worship. He will assume, in all of his teaching, the exis- 
tence and propriety of such habits ; and he may suggest to 
the children, from time to time, desirable seasons, topics 
and forms of prayer for their individual use. Without 
embarrassing any child by direct questioning in the presence 
of others, he will learn, through the indirect revelations of 
class discussion or in moments of personal conversation, 
something about the prayer-habits of each of his pupils; 
and he will try to give to each the guidance that he most 
needs. Often, the teacher will find that parents will 
welcome his help, especially if he is able to bring to their 
attention forms of prayer that they can use profitably in 
the home training of their children. 

III. Characteristics of Prayers for Children 

We turn now to a brief statement of certain general 
principles, which should be observed in the construction or 
selection of prayers for the use of children, or for the use 
of the parent or teacher who leads children in prayer. 

(1) These prayers should be brief, simple and direct. 
No other can hold a child's interest and attention. In 
general, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty words 
is enough; even less is often better. There should be no 
circumlocution or indirection; no elaborate descriptions 
of the attributes of God or of the condition of men; no 
scattering of ideas. Better several short prayers, each 
with one dominant thought, than a combination of too 
many things in one prayer. 



286 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

(2) These prayers should be conceived from the child's 
standpoint. They should deal with matters that lie within 
the circle of his experience; and should give expression to 
his needs. This principle may be transgressed in either 
of two ways: by using a form of prayer that is above the 
level of the child's present experience or one that falls 
below it. The former is the less serious mistake, unless 
the prayer be so far beyond the child as to be incompre- 
hensible. But to hold a child to a form of prayer that is 
below the level of his experience, is to empty his worship of 
meaning and to make religion petty in his eyes. 

(3) These prayers should be definite and in all respects 
true. The mind of a child is concrete, frank and literal. 
He wants definite things, and he means what he says. It 
is possible to foster wrong ideas within him by teaching 
him forms of prayer that are unduly vague or even mis- 
leading. 

The outstanding example of a form that is misleading 
in emphasis, even though it is not actually untrue, is the 
last couplet of the familiar prayer of the old New England 
Primer : 

" Now I lay me down to sleep. 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

Such a prayer was perfectly natural in the eighteenth 
century, when religion concerned itself chiefly with pre- 
paring men to die, and even little children were exhorted 
to think much upon the uncertainty of life. Religion to- 
day is more concerned with fitting men to live. And most 
of us see the wrong of putting into a child's head, night after 
night, at the hour when he is most open to suggestion, the 
idea that he may die during the night. With this in view, 



TEACHING CHILDREN TO PRAY: SCHOOL 287 

there have been many emendations of the last couplet. 
Two of the best forms are : 

(a) Now I lay me down to sleep. 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep 
In peace and safety till I wake, 
And this I ask for Jesus' sake. 

(b) Now I lay me down to sleep. 

I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. 
Thy love go with me all the night, 
And wake me with the morning light. 

(4) These prayers should be filial in spirit. They should 
be such as are natural to a child of God, at home in his 
Father's world. They should express love, trust, gratitude, 
loyalty and obedience, rather than fear, doubt, or mere 
self-interest. Until he is eight years of age, at least, all 
the child's prayers should be addressed to God the Father 
rather than to Jesus Christ. Thus confusion will be 
avoided in his little mind, and he will be helped to carry 
over to God the same sort of confidence that he has in his 
earthly parents. 

(5) These prayers should be social in attitude and content. 
From the first, children should be taught to pray with 
others, and to pray for others as well as for themselves. 
Their prayers should not be allowed to become introspective 
or self-centered. Their worship should reflect, in a nat- 
ural and wholesome way, their training in social motives 
and social living. 

(6) Should forms of prayer for children be cast in rhyme? 
The advantage of a poetic form is that it is more easily 
remembered. The disadvantage is that it lends itself 
more easily to merely mechanical repetition, especially if 
its rhythm be pronounced or jingly. Inverted phrases, 
fanciful figures and other forms of poetic license should be 
avoided; and the prayer should be no less natural and 



288 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

straightforward in expression than if it were prose. The 
temptation must be steadfastly resisted to let the content 
of the prayer be determined by the necessity of making a 
rhyme. On the whole, prose forms are apt to be better. 
We have been uncritically following the fashion if we have 
assumed that children's prayers ought always to be rhymed. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Why is it necessary that the Sunday school, as well as the home, 
should teach children to pray? 

2. Why, in teaching children to pray, must the Sunday school rely 
upon instruction and training in the class group, rather than upon mere 
participation in the worship of the school as a whole? 

3. What should be characteristics of the prayer of the older person 
who leads a group of children in prayer? 

4. What are the advantages of encouraging children to write their 
own forms of prayer for individual or class use? What are the disad- 
vantages? 

5. How shall the teacher encourage children to lead in prayer? 
What are some difficulties? What dangers are to be guarded against? 

6. In what ways may the teacher help the individual devotional life 
of the pupil? 

7. How may the teacher help the parents of his pupils in their training 
of the devotional life of the children? 

8. What should be characteristics of forms of prayer for children's 
use? 

9. Is the posture in prayer important in the training of children? 
Give reasons for your answer. 

10. Should forms of prayer for children be rhymed? Give reasons 
for your answer. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hartshorne, Hugh. — " Worship in the Sunday School," especially 
ch. 7-9; " The Book of Worship of the Church School; " " Manual for 
Training in Worship; " " What Prayers Shall We Use and Why? " 
Religious Education, October, 1914. 

Rankin, Mary E. — "A Course for Beginners in Religious Educa- 
tion." 



LESSON IV 
WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 
I. The Function of Music in Worship 

The thoughtless and flippant attitude taken toward 
music by many people is amazing. In the home it is an 
amusement; but they never dream that it may purify 
the life of the family and vitally affect the characters of the 
children. In the church it is a pleasure, a means of drawing 
crowds and of furnishing variety; but that the songs are 
helping to determine men's ethical ideals and spiritual power 
never occurs to these people. As to what is sung, and why 
it is sung, and the results attained, they apparently have 
no care. 

This is more than incompetence. It is irreverence toward 
God and a wrong to man. For music is a power. Scien- 
tists have found that major chords tend to accelerate 
respiration and stimulate the heart, and that the opposite 
effects are produced by minor melodies. Music may excite 
or soothe nerves, awaken and express emotions, empower 
ideas. In many illnesses, mental and physical, it has been 
found to possess therapeutic value. In reform schools 
it has proved its efficacy to control and transform the 
" discordant " child. 

But its highest practical efficiency has been reached as an 
applied art in the service of religion. For worship and 
music have always been closely associated. It is a long 
way from the symbolic dance and rude chant of the savage 
to the Hallelujah Chorus; but the journey is marked by 
melody from beginning to end. In those periods when 
religion has flourished best, men have sung most. Without 
music worship has seemed imperfect if not impossible. 
289 



290 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

Even pure music apart from speech has its gracious 
ministry. It is full of religious suggestion and inspira- 
tion, and one should learn to worship through listening, 
as Milton did, until it brought all heaven before his sight- 
less eyes. The prelude to public worship, often badly 
chosen and rarely heeded, is an example. This should 
help to set the tone and beget the mood of the hour, and so 
to prepare for the preacher's message. It rids the mind 
of cluttering particulars, creates receptivity, and by sub- 
jecting the congregation to a common experience aids in 
organizing a discordant crowd into a worshiping unit. 
In the same way the offertory and postlude may and should 
be religiously helpful, not mere aesthetic adornments 
but intrinsic parts of a service of prayer and of 
praise. 

But it is when associated with words that music becomes 
most effective. " Mass singing in camps is a tremendous 
factor in the elevation of the spirit of the men," said the 
Chairman of the Committee on Training Camp Activities 
in 1918. " A singing army is irresistible; and we are send- 
ing a singing army to France." " Let me write a people's 
songs, and whosoever will may write their laws," said an 
astute student of human nature centuries ago. To make 
the hymns of the Church is to shape the faith of the Church. 
In all ages hymns have been the prayers, the spiritual food, 
the creeds, the weapons of the saints. Missionaries have 
gone forth as singing evangelists. " By his songs he has 
conquered us! " cried an angry cardinal as he witnessed 
the triumphs of Luther. The Wesleyan Revival needed 
the hymns of Charles as well as the sermons of John; 
and there is good reason why the names of Moody and 
Sankey, of Torrey and Alexander, should have been asso- 
ciated in our own time. 



WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 291 

II. Hymns 

There are three tests for judging the value of hymns in 
the religious education of children : (1) the character of the 
poetry; (2) the character of the music; (3) the adaptation of 
both to use by children. 

1. The poetry. 

(1) Hymns should possess literary merit. Too many 
popular hymns are mere wretched jingles, faulty in form, 
and lacking in lyrical quality and poetic beauty. When a 
boy, trained in the public school to appreciate Shakespeare 
and Tennyson, is asked in the Sunday school to sing such 
literary and religious doggerel as 

" I rode in the sky (freely justified I) 
Nor envied Elijah his seat; 
My soul mounted higher in a chariot of fire, 
And the moon it was under my feet," 

his respect for the school and his training in worship are 
harmed more than they are helped. 

(2) Hymns should be rich in religious values. If spiritual 
insight, ethical vitality and emotional power be lacking, 
the loveliest of lyrics is not fitted for the purposes of 
worship. Miss Wilbur cites a song from a Sunday-school 
hymnal of an older day which begins thus: 

" As Robert Raikes walked out one day, 
He saw some little boys at play, 
Upon the holy Sabbath day, 
A-playing, playing, away. 
Then away, away, we can't wait any longer, 
Away to the Sunday school." 

As she justly remarks, " this may be an historical state- 
ment, but it can hardly be classed as a devotional hymn." 1 



'Mary A. Wilbur: .4 Child's Religion, p. 46. 



292 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

(3) Hymns should contain true conceptions of God and of 
our relations to Him. What thoughts of God and Christ 
and the atonement will a child have who is asked to sing: 

" Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood, 
Which calmed the frowning face; 
Which sprinkled o'er the burning throne, 
And turned the wrath to grace "? 

Such pictures of God are incongruent with the Lord's 
Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm. 

(4) Hymns should contain wholesome imagery. The 
figures of speech should be vivid and interesting, but they 
must also be normal and helpful. No doubt such hymns 
as 

" There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuel's veins, 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood 
Lose all their guilty stains " 

have been used by adults with benefit, though it is open to 
question whether this was not in spite of the figure rather 
than on account of it. But to the mind of a child, which is 
so concrete and literal, such a hymn becomes a kind of 
riddle, whose religious value is doubtful. 

(5) Hymns should be marked by healthy sentiment. In 
too many hymns sentiment becomes sentimentality, and 
feeling a fever. They are effeminate, full of mystical 
rapture, the expressions of a patronizing affection for a 
" gentle Jesus " rather than the virile worship of the hero 
of the Gospels. 

" Ah, dearest Jesus, I have grown 
Childish with love of thee " 

is an extreme example ; though the familiar 
" Safe in the arms of Jesus, 
Safe on his gentle breast " 

is open to the same charge. Such outpourings no healthy- 



WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 293 

minded boy can sing sincerely, and he ought to be protected 
from them, not forced to play the hypocrite. 

(6) Hymns should be true to life. To give out in the 
springtide such a hymn as 

" Lord, what a barren land is this, 
That yields us no supply, 
No cheering fruits, no wholesome trees, 
No streams of living joy," 

is to train our boys and girls to think that while they must 
never lie in ordinary conversation, it makes no difference 
whether you mean what you say or not, provided you sing. 
It has been hard for some of us to forgive the well-meaning 
people who in our childhood gave out Sunday after Sunday, 

" I want to be an angel, 

And with the angels stand, 
A crown upon my forehead, 
A harp within my hand." 

We did not want to be angels. To die and to possess a 
harp and crown was farthest from our desires. Such pious 
fibs, melodiously chanted, should have no place among 
our hymns today. 

2. The music. The second test of a good hymn is the 
character of the music. Unfortunately the market is full 
of cheap, tawdry tunes, possessing few if any musical 
excellencies, and appealing to the feet rather than to the 
head. The fact that children love to sing them is no 
proof of their value for religion. Young people also love 
to sing, " There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To- 
night." " We have such good singing," various schools 
report. Good for what? Mere gusto, the physical anima- 
tion created? Or is it good for religious expression and im- 
pression, good for worship? There are four simple tests 
which may be applied. 



294 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

(1) Melody. Is this simple, lyrical, flowing, with no 
hard intervals, no unusual strain in the range? E flat is 
high enough; F is distinctly difficult. "St. Louis" (" O 
Little Town of Bethlehem ") is a familiar example of a 
good tune. 

(2) Harmony. This should be simple but telling, rich 
but not complicated. We are conscious of its power in 
Dykes' " Nicsea " (" Holy, Holy, Holy "). Attempt to 
improvise this hymn, playing the base in octaves exclu- 
sively on the three main chords, after the fashion of some 
amateur pianists, and note its impoverishment. 

(3) Rhythm. This may well be marked and often 
vigorous, but it should be kept free from all irreverent 
associations. Rag-time, or its religious equivalent, should 
be relentlessly barred. 

(4) The relation of the music to the thought. Is it a fitting 
incarnation, a proper medium for the idea's expression? 
Professor Hartshorne notes the fact that you cannot sing 
" Immortal Love, Forever Full " to " Antioch " (" Joy to 
the World "). The writer recalls one group of children, 
who sang with great gusto 

" Come, O come, with your wounded heart, 
Weary and worn and sad," 
to an air admirably adapted to be used as a one-step, but 
which made any sincere use of the words impossible. In 
contrast mark how Handel sets " I Know that My Redeemer 
Liveth." Those clear, soaring notes utter the thought as 
unmistakably as it is possible for music to clothe it. The 
strong, solid major chords with which " How Firm a 
Foundation " opens set our feet musically upon bed-rock. 
He indeed must be a clod, who does not hear the trumpet call 
to rise and fight in " Webb," set to " Stand up, Stand up 
for Jesus," or feel the serene beauty of " Pax Tecum " 
(" Peace, Perfect Peace "). Much of the output of living 



WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 295 

popular composers is good, some of it exceedingly good. 
But religious educators need to be warned against using 
the froth and foam of our ephemeral musical literature as 
well as the irreverent trash in which some publishing houses 
indulge. 

3. Children's hymns must be good for children. 
They should be marked by simplicity. This is not synony- 
mous with inanity. It is as bad to " talk down " to boys 
and girls in hymns as in sermons. Such foolishness awak- 
ens only their humor and disgust. Most of the songs 
should be objective rather than subjective, adapted to the 
concreteness with which children think; active rather than 
passive, inasmuch as their impulse is less to feel than to do ; 
and all reverent, without the stiffness of the Scotch psalter 
or the heaviness of the German chorale. 

Hymns should be graded for the different ages. With 
the little folk, songs will be used that are pictorial, em- 
phasizing trust and obedience, and dealing with those 
aspects of life which the little child appreciates and under- 
stands. Juniors may well be encouraged to use and memo- 
rize the great hymns. Many of these, like " Rock of Ages " 
and " Abide with Me," are too old for a child and lie beyond 
his experience. But in the years when memory is most 
active and tenacious they should be made a part of his 
heritage. Often, owing to the beauty of the words and the 
charm of the melody, they become school favorites. But 
they should be used with abundant aid for their intelligent 
appreciation. Later in the adolescent years belong the 
hymns incarnating great ideals of duty and of service, which 
appeal to the conscience and invigorate the will. In 
general it is safe to have all over twelve years of age sing 
together; but whether a particular hymn should be used 
in any or all departments must be left to the trained judg- 
ment of the leader. 



296 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

III. The Leadership of Worship in Music 

1. The superintendent or director of music should 
be an earnest Christian, gifted with musical taste and 
religious appreciation, whose presence and manner fit him 
naturally to lead. He should know the best method of 
leadership, which does not consist in thrashing the air, 
shouting and scolding, varied at times by a cutting bit of 
irony or an ill-timed joke. Periods of training are neces- 
sary; but these must never be allowed to interrupt and 
ruin the service of worship, as they often do. 

Some musical knowledge is indispensable for such a 
leader. He may not be a practised singer; but he should 
protect the children's voices from strain, understand the 
classification of hymns, and so use each song as to make it 
effective. He should be able, also, to teach the great 
hymns, and to educate the taste of the school, luring it on 
by gracious and tactful means from low standards, which 
may have become ingrained and beloved, to the higher and 
better ones, which will become still more beloved and do 
the work which music was intended to perform. 

A most important matter will be his wisdom in the 
selection of hymns. Here he must be able to utter and 
enforce the main thought of the service, maintaining 
harmony in variety. It is not wise to have all the hymns 
express the same thought or be of the same character, 
though the central idea of the service must dominate every- 
thing, song and prayer as well as lesson plan. Care should 
be taken to see that the first hymn is familiar, so that all 
will be at home in it; attractive, conducing to general 
participation; fitted to arouse the children's worship, to 
unify their thoughts and feelings, and to strike the key- 
note of the service. Quieter hymns may find a place in 
the body of the service, and others expressing a vigorous 



WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 297 

and wholesome reaction to the thought of the hour may be 
used at the close. It is time that leaders should realize 
that in an order of service all the laws of psychology, all 
the instincts and faculties of childhood, are working either 
for them or against them. The usual musical melange, 
carelessly selected at the last moment, with no clearly de- 
fined purpose, is a confession of weakness which borders 
on the sinful. 

In announcing the hymns a knowledge of the lives of the 
authors and composers, and of incidents in the life-history 
of great hymns, will be very useful. Merely to give out the 
number is a very dull and ineffective method. Not always, 
but often, some word of help and of inspiration should be 
spoken, creating interest, intellectual appreciation, and the 
will to sing. 

2. The pianist. Even the best leader will be badly 
handicapped by a poor pianist. It lies very largely in the 
power of the accompanist to make or to mar an entire 
service, to vitalize and beautify or to '; execute " and 
mummify the loveliest of songs. Competency and pre- 
cision are indispensable. It is impossible to worship with a 
pianist who persistently plays off the key. But there 
must also be genuine musical and religious feeling, bringing 
out the meaning of the words, and rendering " O Sacred 
Head, now Wounded " and " Onward, Christian Soldiers " 
in entirely different ways. If an orchestra or choir is 
used, it should be brought to the same standard of efficiency. 
Better have one good pianist making melody than ten 
instrumentalists and vocalists turning " Fling Out the 
Banner " into bedlam. 

3. The teacher's part will be by word and example to 
win the pupil's religious appreciation of what is being sung, 
to help him to sing it sincerely, and to cooperate intelli- 
gently and whole-heartedly with the leader and pianist. 



298 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

To fail to sing, to look about and whisper, to busy oneself 
with the collection or lesson papers during a hymn, is 
gross and costly irreverence. No person, who does these 
things persistently, should be permitted to teach. 

IV. Music in the Bible 

It is no mere chance that the Bible is full of music, from 
Jubal, the father of the art, to the vision in Revelation 
with which the record ends. It was heard in the Hebrew 
nation's feasts and festivals. It formed a large part of the 
temple worship. So marked was its effect, according to the 
picture of the Chronicler, when the great chorus " lifted 
up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instru- 
ments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is 
good; for his mercy endureth forever: that then the house 
was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that 
the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the 
cloud: for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God." 
The Psalms, those most wonderful of hymns, have been the 
voice of the Church in all ages. Jesus went from the Last 
Supper to Gethsemane singing. Paul counseled his con- 
verts, " Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all 
wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another with 
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace 
in your hearts unto God." The great symbolic pictures of 
heaven have ever been filled with music, which is not merely 
a means of jubilant worship but the incarnation of that 
harmonious living, that spiritual oneness with Jesus, which 
makes melody with its heart to the Lord. Such is the ideal 
and aim of worship in music and song, the making of heaven 
through the reincarnation of Jesus in the lives of our boys 
and girls. 



WORSHIP IN MUSIC AND SONG 299 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Discuss proofs of the power of music. What do you know of its 
part in the maintenance of morale during the Great War? 

2. What are the functions of the prelude to public worship? 

3. For sake of space, only such examples have been cited in the text 
as transgress the principles laid down for the poetry of hymns. Find 
examples of hymns whose poetry fulfils these principles, giving reasons 
for your choice in each case. 

4. Find examples of hymns which transgress the principles laid down 
for the music of hymns. Examples which fulfil these principles. 

5. Draw up a brief list of hymns specially adapted for use in each of 
the departments of the Sunday school. 

6. Select the hymns for a given order of service, centering about some 
topic which you will choose. Give reasons for your selections. 

7. What can the teacher do to help train the child to worship through 
music and song? 

8. What is the place and function of the home in this training? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Benson, L. F. — " The English Hymn." 

Brown and Butterworth — " The Story of the Hymns and Tunes." 
Duffield, S. W. — " English Hymns." 

Hurlburt, H. W. — " The Church and Her Children," ch. 10. 
Lorenz, E. S. — " Practical Church Music." 
Pratt, W. S. — " Musical Ministries." 
Robinson, C. S. — " Annotations upon Popular Hymns." 
Smith, Nicholas — " Hymns Historically Famous." 
Wells, A. R. — " A Treasure of Hymns." 
Wilbur, M. A. — " A Child's Religion," ch. 4. 



LESSON V 
THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE 

1 . The supreme value of the bible lies in its power to 
bring men into fellowship with God, and to make them like 
Him. For this purpose it is incomparably the world's 
masterpiece. 

2. The bible must be brought to bear upon the life 
of the child — vitally rather than mechanically. 
A boy may know the story of every hero in Israel and be 
able to recite glibly the order of the books, the date of the 
Divided Kingdom and the names of the twelve apostles. 
He may be trained to appreciate the literary values of 
Job and the Psalms. Yet in spite of all this intellectual 
expertness he may fail utterly to enter into the great spiritual 
experiences, which the Book was intended to create again 
as well as to record. The great essential is not that the 
child should know the Bible as a text-book, good as this is, 
but that the life of the Bible should take possession of his 
heart, control his thoughts and deeds, and transform him 
into the likeness of Christ. 

3. TWO ATTITUDES TOWARD THE BIBLE ARE INVOLVED 
IN THIS training: 

(1) The intellectual attitude. It is important that children 
be trained in the light of, and eventually know, the re- 
sults of our ripest and most reverent Christian scholarship. 
The historical origin of the books; their literary character 
and value; the content and nature of the revelation as 
absolute or progressive; the relation of the revelation of 
God in the Book to the revelation of God in the facts and 
laws disclosed in His world : — all these will help to de- 
termine the child's use of the Bible, whether it is easy or 
300 



THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE 301 

difficult, a custom of his credulous childhood or a perma- 
nent possession which his future studies and experiences 
will enrich rather than destroy. 

The child should be trained to be open-minded, coming 
with no dogmatic presuppositions, and prepared to study 
the record in the light of all truth with perfect docility. 
He may well be fearless of truth and for truth. He must 
be honest, never dodging facts, or juggling with texts, or 
twisting plain meanings. Doubts are to be faced fear- 
lessly and confidently, and matters which for the present 
he can neither understand nor use laid quietly to one side 
until he can. He should read the Book reverently but 
reasonably, as he reads all great literature. There is no 
incompatibility between reverence and common sense. 
He cannot and should not read Esther and Ecclesiastes 
as he reads Matthew and Colossians; and when he finds 
Paul urging his followers to be subject to rulers, because 
" the powers that be are ordained of God," he will not 
imagine that a Christian, who declines to obey the com- 
mands of a brutal official, civil or military, " withstandeth 
the ordinance of God." 

This intellectual approach must ever be kept preliminary 
and subordinate to the devotional. For the religious power 
of the Bible, while affected by all facts and theories and 
interpretations, is entirely dependent upon none. Men of 
all classes and schools, wise and ignorant, somehow develop 
Christlikeness and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. 
Through the Bible Phillips Brooks and Jerry McAuley 
both found salvation. It is perfectly possible to obtain all 
religious values from the book of Isaiah, whether it be the 
work of one or of many authors, and from the Parable of 
the Prodigal, whether it be Jesus' account of a historical 
event or a story that he told for the purposes of teaching. 
The Bible belongs, according to De Quincey's famous divi- 



302 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

sion, less to the literature of knowledge than to the litera- 
ture of power. In general, for devotional purposes, it is 
unwise to stress theory, especially when permanent relig- 
ious values may be jeopardized thereby. 

(2) The devotional attitude. The child should be trained 
to come to the Book not so much to fill the mind with facts 
as to set it thinking, feeling, aspiring, praying. Suggest 
that he open it with a prayer, such as " Blessed Spirit 
of Truth, guide me into all truth," or " Lord, open Thou 
mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy 
law." As thoughts come, ask him to turn them at once 
into prayers, reaching out toward the great Father and 
Helper with whom he seeks to commune. Whatever the 
passage, teach him to look for a personal word from God, 
an immediate revelation made through the Book, but as 
directly and personally as in the experience of Amos and 
Isaiah. 

" God is not dumb that He should speak no more; 
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor." 

All should be read and pondered in the light of the spirit and 
teaching of Jesus. Christ revised such statutes as " An 
eye for an eye," and denounced the spirit which voiced 
itself in the imprecatory Psalms. Last of all, the child 
should be encouraged to read with a view to action. Thought 
without action, emotion without expression, are futile. 
At the end of every passage, the immediate question should 
be, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? " 

4. Methods of devotional bible study: 

(1) The child should have the best and most accurate 
version. Most scholars agree that this is found in the 
American Revision. With this at times it will be advisa- 
ble to use other versions for the sake of advantages in 



THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE 303 

form and freshness of translation, such as the editions by 
Moulton, Weymouth, MofTatt and others. 

(2) The time should be the best in the day. The evening 
has certain advantages, but the mind is apt to be weary and 
sleepy. The morning is better. Thousands of Bible 
readers testify to the help gained by rising early enough to 
study and to pray, according to the familiar custom of 
the Morning Watch. 

(3) The readings should be systematic and regular. Yet 
they should not be a mere matter of rote, with no wise 
selection or definite purpose. Compelling children to read 
the Bible straight through is of very doubtful expediency. 
A habit to be encouraged is that of reading large portions 
at a single sitting. Many are surprised to know that of the 
sixty-six books in the Bible forty-two can be read in one 
half hour each. One writer estimates that at the rate of 
one hundred words a minute, which is not fast, Ruth can 
be read in twenty-five minutes, Ephesians in thirty, Job in 
less than two hours, and 2 Samuel in three hours and a 
half. In making selections it is helpful to center them 
around certain persons, re-living and applying their experi- 
ences to our own circumstances and problems; or around 
topics, such as the rewards of virtue or the meanness of 
sin. 

(4) Reading the Bible aloud will be found helpful. As in 
the case of poetry it is only so that the full beauty and 
tenderness, the cadence and eloquence, the sympathy 
and impetuosity of the narrative and dramatic portions 
are fully felt. 

(5) The child should also be encouraged to memorize 
selected portions. These should be true, appealing to his 
intellect; beautiful, appealing to his feelings; and full of 
living power, appealing to his will. In this connection the 
testimony of Jokn Ruskin is interesting. Hte mother, 



304 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

rather stern and exacting in her discipline, forced the boy 
to learn long chapters by heart. As to the result Ruskin 
writes: " She established my soul in life. . . . And truly, 
though I have picked up the elements of a little further 
knowledge — in mathematics, meteorology, and the like 
— in after life, and owe not a little to the teaching of many 
people, this maternal installation of my mind in the property 
of chapters I count very confidently the most precious, 
and, on the whole, the one essential part of my education." 
5. The Bible must be adapted to the devotional 
use of the child. 

(1) The material varies in its devotional values. Most 
important in childhood and adolescence are the life and 
teachings of Jesus. These present God near to the child as 
a Father, call forth admiration and awaken penitence, 
bring him under the spell of the Son of God, who communed 
with his Father naturally and constantly, and so lead him 
to follow in the Master's train. Next to the Gospels come 
the great Psalms. Here are the world's classics in the 
literature of devotion, and many of them lend themselves 
naturally to the experiences and needs of a child. After 
these will come the personal and practical portions of the 
Epistles, followed by the great chapters in Deuteronomy, 
the flaming utterances of the prophets, and such narrative 
portions of both Testaments as best help one to realize 
the presence and goodness of God. Some selections from 
the Wisdom and Apocalyptic Literature will be useful; 
but in general these may well be left to maturer years. 

(2) The child's interests and needs vary. To the Beginner, 
stories dealing with the home and with God's ways in 
nature may be told, after the method of the kindergarten. 
In the Primary department the experiences of school give 
a wider range, and the child will learn to read for himself 
passages dealing with the simple truths concerning God and 



THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE 305 

His ways with men. This training will be broadened dur- 
ing the Junior years, when the child's social instincts begin 
to expand and he becomes a hero-worshiper. We shall 
seek then to imbue him with the spirit of moral heroism, 
and to help him to acquire right habits and to understand 
the duty and the joy of service. Intermediate pupils 
are facing personal decision, and their readings should 
stimulate them to definite consecration to Christ and em- 
power them for effective Christian living. The Seniors' 
interest will center around practical decisions, clear think- 
ing, the settling of doubts and direct training in various 
forms of Christian activity. At every stage the material 
must be on the plane of the child's interests and experiences 
and desires if it is to be fruitful, rising year by year until he 
has worked out a satisfactory adjustment to himself, to 
society and to God. 

(3) The language should be adapted to the child. For the 
Beginners the stories will need to be put in the words of 
the kindergarten. When the children begin to read, there 
are various volumes of Bible tales told in simple and vivid 
form, which they will appreciate and understand. As soon 
as possible, however, the language of the Book itself should 
be used, in which the revelation finds its matchless literary 
form. 

6. The devotional use of the Bible in the home. 
Here the custom of the child will depend almost entirely 
upon the custom of the parents. The living example, good or 
bad, will be contagious and far more effective than all the 
exhortations and punishments which parental ingenuity 
can devise. 

Care should be taken to use the Book naturally, free 
from all superstition and " piosity "; to read it reverently, 
but simply and joyously, emphasizing the element of plea- 
sure as well as of devotion and instruction; to point out 



306 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

its literary beauties and practical applications, until the 
children perceive the varied values in it. and turn to it as 
the best of all the books on their shelves. 

All sorts of helps will be useful — pictures of great paint- 
ings, photographs, stories of travel in the Orient; in brief, 
whatever will make the Book live in the life of a child. It 
is not enough to place a limp leather volume in the hands 
of a boy and compel him to read it. The act must be 
vital and spiritual as well as mechanical. 

7. The teacher should do all that he can to inspire 
and further the devotional use of the Bible by the child and 
in the life of the home. Parents should be awakened to 
their duty, be put into touch with the best books, and find 
inspiration and guidance. In the class the use of the Bible 
will furnish both impulse and example. Under the teacher's 
treatment the power and charm of the Book and the relig- 
ious purpose of the writers will ever be apparent. One 
great aim will dominate every lesson — the salvation, the 
making whole, here and now, in body, mind and spirit, 
of these children. In the light of his devotional use of the 
Bible all life will become sacramental. God will be seen 
everywhere at work in His world, and the child will be 
taught to hear God speaking in our times, not only through 
the ancient oracles but in his own life, in all truth, in the 
voice of conscience, in the impulses of love, in the revela- 
tions of nature, in the laws of morality, in art, in literature, 
in music, and above all in the life and teaching of Jesus 
Christ. If such definite and vital contact can be made 
between this treasure-house of the Word of God and the 
child's life and world in which the same God is speaking 
today, the dust and distaste which envelop many a boy's 
Bible will be removed, and it will become indeed and in 
truth the Book of all books to him, his chief aid in worship 
and the guardian and teacher of his soul. 



THE DEVOTIONAL USE OF THE BIBLE 307 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. In what does the devotional value of the Bible lie? 

2. In how far and in what respect is a true intellectual attitude toward 
the Bible and correct knowledge concerning it essential to the experi- 
ence of its devotional values? 

3. What do you understand by the devotional attitude toward the 
Bible? 

4. What have you found to be the best time for your regular daily 
devotions ? Why is it best for you ? 

5. How should the selection of Bible passages for devotional reading 
be made? Make a selection for yourself of one month's daily readings 
and give your reasons for making just this selection. 

6. What parts of the Bible have you found to be of the highest devo- 
tional value? Why? 

7. In what respects may the Bible be graded for the devotional use 
of children? How early should the child begin to use the Bible itself? 

8. What can parents do to further the child's devotional use of the 
Bible? 

9. What can the Sunday-school teacher do? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Adeney, W. F. — " How to Read the Bible." 
Barbour, C. A. et al — " The Bible in the World of Today." 
Buehler, H. G. et al — " The Use of the Bible among Schoolboys." 
Hodges, George — "The Training of Children in Religion," ch. 10; 

"A Child's Guide to the Bible; " " How to Know the Bible." 
Selleck, W. C. — " The New Appreciation of the Bible." 
Adaptations of the Bible for the use of children: 
Hall and Wood — " The Bible Story," 5 vols. 
Hurlbut, J. L. — " The Story of the Bible." 
Olcott, F. J. — " Bible Stories to Read and Tell." 



LESSON VI 
THE MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 

A great deal of memorizing has been required of children 
by the Sunday school in times past — much of it unwisely, 
for it took the place of understanding. In our reaction 
against the merely memoriter methods of earlier days, we 
are perhaps in danger of unduly neglecting this aspect of 
religious education. A thoroughly worked out, graded 
scheme of memory-work is something very much to be 
desired, on which, however, only more or less fragmentary 
work has as yet been done. 

It is not our business here to discuss or to attempt to 
formulate principles for such a general scheme of memory- 
work. We are concerned simply with training the devo- 
tional life. As an element in that training, it is of the 
highest importance that there be committed to memory 
a certain body of materials — prayers, hymns, Scripture 
passages, and the like — which may be used in worship. 

1. Why should children memorize materials for 
use in worship? 

(1) Because their worship may thus be made more real and 
direct. Having command of the language of worship, 
they the more readily direct their attention to the Father 
to whom they are speaking. This is especially true of the 
social worship of a group of children. All ought to join 
in the hymns and in some of the prayers for sake of the 
added reality which children feel in such unison of worship. 
But if they must fumble over leaves to find a printed prayer 
in a book, or be directed to look at a spot on the wall where 
one appears on a blackboard or chart, and then be dis- 
tracted by the technique of reading it — and it should be 
308 



MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 309 

noted that to read aloud together is a more difficult thing, 
even for adults, than to say together something which all 
know — their attitude is not as spontaneous and whole- 
minded, and their worship is apt not to seem to them as 
real and direct, as is the case when they repeat together a 
form of prayer which all have made their own. The 
same thing is true, though less so, of their use of hymns. 
And certainly some passages of Scripture mean more to a 
child in worship if he can repeat them than if he must have 
them read to him. 

(2) Because the memorization of these materials prepares 
children to share in, to appreciate and to enjoy the public 
worship of the church. Most of the material which children 
will commit to memory in this way is not peculiar to child- 
hood. It forms a part of the devotional heritage of the 
Christian Church, and, in one form or another, is in con- 
stant use wherever Christian people gather for prayer and 
praise. Knowing these prayers and hymns and Scripture 
passages, children will feel at home in the church. 

(3) Because this memorized material may remain a perma- 
nent possession and constitute a spiritual resource to the end of 
life. In manhood and womanhood, they will not be as 
dependent as others upon external aids to worship. They 
will carry with them, wherever they go, those Bible passages 
which they have made a part of themselves. They will 
be able, in any situation, not only to make melody in their 
hearts to the Lord, but to raise their voices in familiar 
hymns of praise. They will not be at a loss for language 
in which to express their aspirations to God in prayer. 
They will be men and women, in short, of devotional re- 
source. From a never-failing inner store of materials, 
precious in association and rich in meaning, they will draw 
happiness and power for themselves and will bring comfort 
and inspiration to others. 



310 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

2. When should these materials be memorized? 
In childhood, all would agree, and especially in later child- 
hood, from six to fourteen. In these years children take 
delight in memorizing as they will not later; it seems easier 
for them, and their memories appear to be more retentive. 

In making this statement, however, we must be careful 
not to draw the conclusion that children really have better 
memories than adults. The trend of experimental investi- 
gation in late years has been to throw doubt upon the truth 
of this common opinion. " The same tests hgve been 
put to young children, school children and boys and girls 
up to the age of twenty, and these show that the older the 
learner, up to these limits at least, the quicker he learns 
and the better he remembers." 1 And in those cases where 
a group of adults has submitted to these tests, they have 
done better than any of the younger age-groups. It has 
been clearly established that adults have better immediate 
memory than children; it is possible, however, that the 
retentive power of children (their ability to keep for a long 
time what they learn) is greater than that of adults, though 
this is hard either to prove or disprove. 

Still it is true that childhood is preeminently the time 
for memorizing. Children are interested in it as adults 
are not ; they are in many respects more plastic ; they are 
not involved in the multitude of other occupations and 
interests which engage older folk; and their higher mental 
powers have not yet developed sufficiently to assume that 
place of precedence over memory that these will take in 
later life. Memory develops very rapidly throughout 
childhood, until the age of thirteen or fourteen, then more 
slowly; while reasoning power develops most rapidly in 
the teens and early twenties. 



'H.J. Watt: The Economy and Training of Memory, p. 29. 



MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 311 

3. What materials should be memorized? Principles 
for the selection of materials to be memorized have been 
indicated in the statement of reasons for such memoriza- 
tion. It should be material (a) which is actually used by 
the children in worship, (b) which prepares them to share 
in and to appreciate the worship of the church, and (c) 
which ought to remain in memory as a permanent spiritual 
resource. There is much material which fulfils all three of 
these functions; some, which is of little immediate service 
in the worship of the children, may yet be included for 
sake of its value in the light of the second and third 
principles. 

(1) Scripture passages. The memorization of Scripture 
should not be limited to single verses or " golden texts," 
however valuable these may be. These are committed 
easily, but forgotten readily, and do not acquire associa- 
tive connections enough to insure their being recalled when 
needed. Children should be encouraged to memorize 
whole passages as well as single verses; and passages for 
this purpose should be carefully selected with a view to their 
devotional value. The following list of such passages is 
suggestive : 

Ex. 20 : 3-17 The Ten Commandments 

Num. 6 : 24-26 The Aaronic benediction 

Deut. 6 : 4-9 Hear, O Israel 

Psalm 1 Blessed is the man 

Psalm 19 The heavens declare 

Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd 

Psalm 24 The earth is the Lord's 

Psalm 46 God is our refuge 

Psalm 51 : 1-3, 10-12, 15-17 Have mercy upon me 

Psalm 84 How amiable are thy tabernacles 

Psalm 90 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place 

Psalm 91 He that dwelleth in the secret place 

Psalm 95 : l-7a Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord 



312 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

Psalm 96 Oh sing unto the Lord a new song 

Psalm 100 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord 

Psalm 103 Bless the Lord, O my soul 

Psalm 119 : 9-11 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way 

Psalm 121 I will lift up mine eyes 

Psalm 139 : 1-12, 17-18, 23-24 O Lord, thou hast searched me 

Psalm 145 I will extol thee, my God, O King 

Isa. 9 : 6-7 Unto us a child is born 

Isa. 40 : 3-14, 28-31 The voice of him that crieth 

Isa. 53 : 1-6 Who hath believed our report? 

Isa. 55 : 1-11 Ho, every one that thirsteth 

Isa. 61 : 1-3 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me 

Micah 6 : 6-8 Wherewith shall I come before the Lord? 

Matt. 5 : 1-16 The Beatitudes 

Matt. 5 : 43-48 Be ye therefore perfect 

Matt. 6 : 9-13 The Lord's Prayer 

Matt. 7 : 7-11 Ask, and it shall be given you 

Matt. 7 : 21-29 Not every one that saith 

Matt. 11 : 28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labor 

Matt. 25 : 31-46 When the Son of man shall come 

Matt. 28 : 18-20 Go ye therefore, and teach 

Mark 8 : 34-37 Take up his cross and follow me 

Mark 10 : 35-45 Not to be ministered unto, but to minister 

Luke 1 : 46-53 My soul doth magnify the Lord 

Luke 2 : 29-32 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 

Luke 10 : 25-37 The good Samaritan 

Luke 12 : 13-31 The life is more than meat 

Luke 15 : 11-24 The prodigal son 

Luke 18 : 9-14 The Pharisee and the publican 

John 3 : 14-17 God so loved the world 

John 6 : 35, 37-40 The bread of life 

John 10 : 1-16 The good shepherd 

John 14 : 1-14 Let not your heart be troubled 

John 15 : 1-8 I am the vine, ye are the branches 

Acts 10 : 34-35 God is no respecter of persons 

Acts 17 : 22-31 Paul's speech at Athens 

Rom. 8 : 1-4, 14-17 There is therefore now no condemnation 

Rom. 8 : 31-35, 37-39 If God is for us, who is against us? 

Rom. 12 A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God 

I Cor. 11 : 23-28 The Lord's Supper 



MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 313 

I Cor. 13 The psalm of love 

I Cor. 15 : 35-44, 53-58 The resurrection of the dead 

II Cor. 4 : 16-18 Outward and inward; temporal and eternal 
Gal. 5 : 22 to 6 : 9 The fruit of the Spirit 

Eph. 3 : 14—19 For this cause I bow my knees 

Eph. 4 : 1-6 The unity of the Spirit 

Eph. 6 : 10-18 Be strong in the Lord 

Phil. 2 : 3-1 1 Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus 

Phil. 3 : 13-14 This one thing I do 

Phil. 4 : 4-8 Rejoice in the Lord alway 

I Thess 5 : 15-23 See that none render evil for evil 

II Tim. 3 : 14-17 Continue thou in the things which thou hast 
learned 

II Tim. 4 : 6-8 I have fought a good fight 

Heb. 4 : 12-16 Tempted like as we are 

Heb. 11 : 1-10, 32 to 12 : 2 The psalm of faith 

James 1 : 22-27 Doers of the word 

II Pet. 1 : 5—11 Christian character-building 

I John 3 : 1-3 Behold what manner of love 

I John 4 : 7-1 1 God is love 

Rev. 3 : 11-12 Behold, I come quickly 

Rev. 3 : 20-21 Behold, I stand at the door and knock 

Rev. 7 : 9-17 A great multitude standing before the throne 

Rev. 21 : 1-5, 22 to 22 : 5 The holy city, new Jerusalem 

(2) Hymns. No type of material is more easily memo- 
rized than songs. Children just pick them up by singing 
them; and a very little effort, wisely expended, avails to 
make their possession of these both permanent and ac- 
curate. But these should be songs worth keeping. The 
following list will suggest types of hymns that may be 
used by children in worship and are well worth their learn- 
ing by heart. Hymns for little children in the Primary 
Department are not included. 

When Morning Gilds the Skies (Laudes Domini) 
Now the Day is Over (Twilight) 
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty (Nicsea) 
Come, Thou Almighty King (Italian Hymn) 



314 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

O Worship the King, All-glorious Above (Lyons) 

This is My Father's World (Diademata) 

My God, I Thank Thee, Who Hast Made (Wentworth) 

The King of Love My Shepherd is (Dominus Regit Me) 

Father, Lead Me Day by Day (St. Bees) 

O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles) 

It Came upon the Midnight Clear (Carol) 

Silent Night (Silent Night) 

Little Town of Bethlehem (St. Louis) 
Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne (Margaret) 
Joy to the World (Antioch) 

1 Think When I Read that Sweet Story of Old (Sweet Story) 
O Master Workman of the Race (Materna) 

Shepherd of Tender Youth (Kirby Bedon) 

My Faith Looks up to Thee (Olivet) 

Jesus, Lover of My Soul (Martyn or Hollingside) 

In the Cross of Christ I Glory (Rathbun) 

The Day of Resurrection (Lancashire, in key of D) 

Light of the World, We Hail Thee (Salve Domine) 

Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me (Pilot) 

Immortal Love, Forever Full (Serenity) 

Who is on the Lord's Side (Armageddon) 

The Son of God Goes Forth to War (All Saints No. 2) 

Onward, Christian Soldiers (St. Gertrude) 

Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus (Webb) 

Take My Life and Let It Be (Messiah or Hollingside) 

O Jesus, I have Promised (Angel's Story) 

Saviour, Like a Shepherd Lead Us (Bradbury) 

Dear Lord and Father of Mankind (Whittier) 

Nearer, My God, to Thee (Bethany) 

Yield Not to Temptation (Palmer) 

Who Would not Love the Bible (Angel's Story) 

Break Thou the Bread of Life (Bread of Life) 

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come (St. George's Windsor) 

O Beautiful for Spacious Skies (America the Beautiful) 

My Country, 'Tis of Thee (America) 

Fling Out the Banner (Waltham) 

All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name (Coronation) 

From Greenland's Icy Mountains (Missionary Hymn) 

We've a Story to Tell to the Nations (Message) 



MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 315 

(3) Prayers and the elements of ritual. The memoriza- 
tion of forms of prayer, for both individual and social use, 
has been discussed in the second and third chapters of 
this book. If other elements of ritual enter into children's 
worship, these likewise should in general be committed 
to memory. 

This is not the place to discuss the value of ritual in 
Christian worship. Churches, as well as individuals, 
differ, temperamentally and habitually, in the significance 
that they attach to forms and ceremonies, postures and 
symbolic acts. But whatever our grown-up views, it 
is inevitable that something of ritual be involved in the 
religious education of our children. A child is associated 
with older folk in a life which he can but partly under- 
stand; he imitates postures, intonations and actions long 
before he can grasp their full meaning; he loves repeti- 
tion; he is dramatic, imaginative, emotional. In most of 
his early education, his doing and feeling go before and 
prepare the way for his understanding. So with his educa- 
tion in religion. He will acquire habits of life and worship, 
feelings of reverence and forms of devotion, before he can 
establish their logical basis in adequate ideas. 

Any ritual, however simple, that involves responses on the 
part of the children, spoken or sung, or unison prayer, will 
in general fall short of full effectiveness if these must be 
read. If the public worship of the church contains such 
ritual elements, children may be encouraged to memorize 
these in order to equip themselves to take part in it. 

Many churches which in worship profess a formal creed, 
require children to memorize this in connection with their 
reception into full church-membership, if not before. In 
this, they follow a practise which can be traced back to the 
second century. If such memorization means the dog- 
matic imprisonment of the child's mind, it is most unwise; 



316 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

but if it is to equip the child to share with his elders in an 
affirmation of faith and loyalty — which was the meaning 
of the recital of a creed in the early Church, and should be 
its meaning today — it is both reasonable and proper. 

Churches which profess no formal creed, as well as those 
which do, may well encourage children to memorize the 
covenant which they assume when they take upon them- 
selves the vows of discipleship and join the church. The 
life of many a church would be strengthened and deepened, 
if all its members knew by heart, and from time to time re- 
called, the terms of their covenant, the vows taken in 
Christian Baptism, and the words of the Master associated 
with the institution of the Lord's Supper. For these are 
the elements of ritual that are most important to any 
church. 

4. The grading of memory materials. These ma- 
terials should be graded as carefully as possible, with a 
view to the child's ability to understand them. They 
should be memorized, moreover, in as close correlation 
with the lesson-material which he is studying as is practica- 
ble. By all means, of course, their memorization must be 
correlated with their actual use in the children's worship. 
It is a mistake to maintain that a child should commit 
nothing that he does not comprehend, for the full meaning 
of many verses can be realized only in later life. But 
certainly he should never memorize anything that he can- 
not in some measure understand. The present meaning 
and emotional setting of any memorized material largely 
determines its permanence and future value. 

No attempt has been made to divide into grades the ma- 
terial contained in the lists given above, for two reasons: 
because the problem of just what should be memorized 
in a given year involves so many conditions that are local — 
the development of the children, the content of their 



MEMORIZATION OF WORSHIP MATERIALS 317 

lesson material, and their opportunities for worship; and 
because the great part of this memorization will be done in 
the Junior and Intermediate departments. All of the 
hymns and almost all of the Scripture passages cited are 
adapted for use in the Junior department. Those that 
may be learned by younger children will be readily picked 
out by the Primary teacher. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Why should children memorize materials for use in worship? 
If you feel that they should not, give your reasons. 

2. In what senses is childhood the best time for memorizing? 

3. Give examples, if you can, of the results of memorizing without 
understanding what was being memorized. 

4. Give examples, if you can, of how memorization with partial under- 
standing prepares the way for later full understanding and realization. 

5. Prepare, as for actual use in your own class or school, a list of 
Scripture passages for memorization. Criticise and evaluate the list 
given in the chapter, add to it and take from it, and grade it for the 
several departments. Give reasons for all that you do. 

6. Prepare, in like manner, a list of hymns for memorization. 

7. Should a child memorize the church's creed, provided it professes 
one in worship? Give reasons for your answer. 

8. Should a child memorize the covenant entered into upon becom- 
ing a full member of the church? Give reasons for your answer. 

9. Why should the vows taken in Christian Baptism be memorized? 
The words associated with the institution of the Lord's Supper? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

For principles and methods of memorization: 
Norsworthy and Whitley. — " The Psychology of Childhood." 
Strayer and Norsworthy. — " How to Teach," ch. 5. 
Watt, H. J. — " The Economy and Training of Memory." 

For suggestive lists of memory materials: 

Veach, R. W. — " Bible Reading and Religious Training in the 
Home," pp. 15-18. 

Verkuyl, Gerrit. — "Children's Devotions," p. 51; "Scripture 
Memory Work." 



LESSON VII 
WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 

1. The term church school is coming to be used widely 
as a name for all of the organizations and agencies within 
a local church, whereby it seeks to promote the religious 
life and growth of its children and young people and to 
train its adult members for effective service. The church 
school, so conceived, includes the Sunday school, the 
young people's society, teacher-training classes and classes 
in preparation for church membership, as well as such 
organizations as the Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, King's 
Daughters, mission bands, and the like. 

It is not our business here to discuss the organization of a 
church school. Its details may differ widely, depending 
upon tl.c- local situation. Whatever precise form the 
organization may take, the term church school stands for 
more than the mere addition of a new name. It betokens 
the church's assumption of a new responsibility, and its 
recognition of three principles that are fundamental: 

(1) That all of the organizations which a church main- 
tains for its children and young people, or permits in its 
name to be brought to bear upon them, are educative in 
character; and the efficiency or non-efficiency of each is 
to be judged finally by its educational effect upon the 
moral and religious life of the children and young people 
it touches. This is true, however little of instruction the 
organization may undertake, and however completely its 
program may be one of activities. 

(2) That the work of these organizations should be so 
coordinated and correlated that each will take its place 
within an educational program which is unified, consistent 

318 



WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 319 

and complete. This program should contain definite pro- 
vision for the religious education of children and young 
people of every age, and for both instruction and activity, 
impression and expression, at every stage of the process. 

(3) That the church itself is responsible for the concep- 
tion and administration of this educational program. 

In the training of the devotional life the church school 
can do three things that are of great value: (1) it can afford 
to children the experience of worship under controlled con- 
ditions; (2) it can give them instruction and drill in the 
elements of worship; (3) it can offer them opportunities 
for the expression in word and deed of the attitudes de- 
veloped in worship, and train them in such expression. 

2. The church school should afford to children THE 

EXPERIENCE OF WORSHIP UNDER CONDITIONS THAT ARE 
CONTROLLED BY AN EDUCATIVE PURPOSE. The worship 

of the church school differs from that of the family and of 
the church, in that its primary aim is the education of 
children in worship, and all the elements of its devotional 
program should be definitely planned with this in view. 
This principle applies to the worship of all the organizations 
and groups, however varied, that go to make up the church 
school. Its most important application is to the worship 
of the Sunday school. 

The Sunday school ought to include, at some point in the 
program of each session, a brief service of worship, carefully 
planned to bring its pupils into fellowship with God and to 
train and develop their power to worship. Too many 
Sunday schools have failed at this point. " Our whole 
session is worshipful," the superintendent of such a school 
will often say, meaning that hymns and prayers and ex- 
hortations are scattered all through it and that becoming 
order is maintained ; but his use of the adjective shows that 
he does not fully understand what worship means. 



320 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

The period devoted to this service should be kept absolutely 
free from all distracting elements. It should not be broken 
into by announcements or reports, questions addressed to 
the pupils, the practise of hymns or drill upon memory 
material, talks about the lesson, " remarks " by visitors, 
exhortations to attendance or benevolence, or anything 
else of this sort. All of these things may have their place; 
many of them certainly do. But their place is not in the 
period during which the school seeks to afford to its pupils 
the experience of worship, under conditions that will most 
effectively train them to approach God. 

The program of a Sunday-school session falls naturally 
into three great divisions: (a) the period or periods for 
general instruction, drill, announcements, and all other 
matters which concern the school or department as a whole; 
(b) the service of worship: (c) the period or periods of 
class instruction and training. These should be kept dis- 
tinct, and not allowed to interrupt one another. 

The time for the service of worship should be at that point 
in the session which experience proves to be most practicable 
and helpful. If put at the beginning, it gives a right 
start to the whole session. But tardy pupils either will 
interrupt or must be shut out; and too often the impres- 
sions of the period of worship are dissipated before the 
classes take up the lesson. If put at the end, it constitutes 
the climax of the day's work, and sends the pupils away 
with the benediction of its influence. But its influence is 
lacking throughout the class period, where it is much 
needed, and the service itself is apt to be scamped or to 
lack something of wholeheartedness in the atmosphere of 
getting ready to go home. 

Another natural place for the service of worship is 
just before the classes separate for the teaching of the 
lesson. On this plan the session begins with a hymn 



WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 321 

and a brief prayer of invocation, then proceeds to the 
period of general instruction, after which comes the 
service of worship, and then the class instruction. 

The program for this service of worship should be simple 
and brief, yet planned with the utmost care. The essential 
elements are four: hymn, Scripture, prayer and offering. 
But over and above the actual content of these elements, 
in whatever order put and however enriched, the leader 
should foresee and plan even minor details of procedure 
in such fashion that every aspect of the situation may 
reinforce and contribute to the spirit of worship. A short 
prelude, reverent in character; a sentence sung by the 
choir in call to worship; or the use of a processional hymn 
may help to determine the atmosphere. The numbers of 
the hymns, psalms, and prayers which are to be used 
should be posted upon a hymn-board that all may see, 
and the pupils should be given opportunity to find these 
before the service begins. There need be no announcement 
of items or numbers, then, to interrupt the natural spirit 
and sequence of the worship itself. A brief ritual is a help 
provided all learn it by heart. It is confusing to find and 
follow a different " responsive service " each Sunday. 
New forms should be used from time to time, but each 
should be mastered so that it may serve rather than 
impede the expression of the attitudes of worship. In 
general, the worship programs of the Sunday school have 
given too large a place to responsive reading, the devo- 
tional value of which is doubtful. Reading in unison is 
better. 

The offering should be treated as a part of the pupils' 
worship of God. One school has a moment set apart in 
the period for general instruction, when the attendance is 
taken and the members of each class place their offerings 
in the class envelope. Then, at the proper point in the 



322 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

service of worship, the school deacons gather the offering 
as quietly and reverently as do those of any church, and 
bring it forward to be placed before God while all rise and 
sing an appropriate sentence of dedication. 

The service of worship should be graded for the several 
departments. The Beginners' and Primary departments, 
of course, should have their separate worship; and most 
schools that have tried it, are convinced that the Juniors 
should worship by themselves. The common practise is 
to have all above the Junior department worship together; 
but here, too, there is much to be said in favor of having 
the Intermediate and Senior pupils worship by departments. 
While it is true that young and old should have the expe- 
rience of worshiping together, the public worship of the 
church affords that opportunity. In the church school we 
shall do best to fit the experiences of worship as precisely 
as we can to the needs of the pupils. Many schools whose 
departments meet thus separately have all meet together, 
in one assembly and service of worship, once a month. 

The following are typical programs for the several 
departments : 

(a) Beginners' Department 

1. Quiet Music. 

2. Offering, with Prayer. 

3. Greeting, with Song. 

4. Hymn. 

5. Prayer. 

6. Circle Talk. 

7. Rest Period. 

8. Table Period. 

9. Story Period. 

10. Good-bye Song. 

11. Closing Prayer. 

12. Distribution of Folders or Letters to Parents. 

13. Music. 



WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 323 

(b) Primary Department 

1. Opening Service. 

(1) Quiet music. 

(2) Greeting, with Song. 

(3) Unison Prayer. 

(4) Prayer Song. 

2. First Class Period, for memory drill or for the retelling of stories. 

3. Fellowship Period (birthdays, new pupils, drill of department as 

a whole upon memory material, new songs, etc.). 

4. Service of Worship. 

(1) Call to worship, with quiet music. 

(2) Scripture, repeated in unison. 

(3) Hymn. 

(4) Offering. 

(5) Prayer. 

5. Second Class Period, for instruction and handwork. 

6. Closing exercises. 

(1) Song. 

(2) Prayer. 

(3) Music. 

(c) Junior Department (Topic: Loyalty) 

1. Hymn: " Come, Thou Almighty King." The children rise to 

sing, and remain standing to recite from memory 

2. Psalm 100: " Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." 

3. The Lord's Prayer. The children are then seated during the 

4. Memory Drill, conducted by the superintendent. 

5. Announcements and Reports. 

6. Service of Worship. 

(1) Call to worship, with quiet music or response by the choir. 

(2) Scripture, read in unison or repeated from memory : Psalm 27, 

(3) Hymn: " Lead On, O King Eternal." The children rise to 

sing, and remain standing to repeat the 

(4) Unison Prayer. 

(5) Story: " A faithful soldier of Christ." 

(6) Leader's Prayer 

(7) Offering. 

(8) Hymn: " O Jesus, I have Promised." 

7. Class Period for instruction and handwork. 

8. Closing exercises. 

(1) Hymn: " Fling Out the Banner " 

(2) Prayer and Benediction. 



324 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

(d) The program for the Intermediate Department does not differ 
materially, in point of order, from that for the Junior Department. 
The difference is rather in the content of the worship materials, and in 
the directly evangelistic aim which should inspire all that is done in 
this department. The leader's talk need not always take the story 
form, as it naturally does in the department below this. 

(e) The program for the Senior Department differs from those of 
the Junior and Intermediate Departments in two chief respects: the 
lessening of emphasis upon memory work, and the handing over of the 
actual conduct of the service, as far as possible, to the boys and girls 
themselves. The Young People's Department should seek yet more 
fully to develop within its pupils initiative and responsibility in the 
planning and conducting of their own worship. 

Excellent work in this field has been done by Professor 
Hartshorne, whose books present a wealth of concrete sug- 
gestion, based upon his experience as Principal of the Union 
School of Religion. He puts the service of worship at the 
beginning of the session, has the whole school worship 
together, and has the pupils march for this purpose, singing 
a processional hymn, to the chapel of the Seminary — 
which is equivalent, under ordinary conditions, to using 
the auditorium of the church with its organ and worshipful 
environment. The service lasts from twenty to twenty-five 
minutes, is organized about one of the fundamental Chris- 
tian attitudes as a central theme, and includes a story or 
talk by the leader. The following is a typical program, 
the theme being Gratitude : 

1. Processional Hymn: " Rejoice, ye pure in heart." 

The school enters and remains standing as the leader says: " Let 
us pray." Then follows 

2. The Lord's Prayer, the choir singing the Amen. 

Still standing, the school then sings, without announcement 

3. The Doxology. (Only the first line need be played) 

The school is then seated and bowed during the 

4. Sentence by the choir, sung softly: 



WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 325 

" The Lord is in His holy temple 
Let all the earth keep silence before Him." 
The school continues with heads bowed, and the leader says: " Let 
us pray." Then follows 

5. The Unison Prayer (repeated from memory, the choir singing the 

Amen) 

6. Hymn: " We plough the fields and scatter." 

7. Story: " What Bradley Owed." At the close of the story the 

leader says, " Let us pray." Then follows 

8. The Leader's Prayer, the choir singing the Amen. 

9. Recessional Hymn: " For the beauty of the earth." 

3. The church school should afford to children instruc- 
tion IN THE MEANING OF WORSHIP AND DRILL IN ITS ELE- 
MENTS. We have already discussed this in the chapters 
on Teaching Children to Pray and the Memorization of 
Worship Materials. Let it be added here simply that such 
instruction and drill may be the work, in one respect or 
another, of any or all of the organizations and groups that 
constitute the church school. In the Sunday school it will 
be accomplished in part by general drill of the school or 
department as a whole, in part by the teachers in their 
respective classes, and in part by the individual work of 
the pupils, mastering materials for themselves under the 
guidance and inspiration of the teachers. 

This is not the place to discuss methods of drill. We 
state briefly, however, four principles of memorization 
which have been established by modern experimental in- 
vestigation. 

(1) Learning by wholes is easier and more economical 
than learning by parts, unless the matter presents special 
difficulties. "In learning familiar matter of moderate 
length, read through the whole piece repeatedly till it is 
learned. Do not learn little by little or verse by verse." 

(2) It is better to distribute one's efforts to memorize a 
given passage over several periods of application, than to 



326 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

attempt to learn it all at once. It is more economical to 
learn several things simultaneously, by this method of 
distributed applications, than to have only one piece of 
memory work on hand at a time, and to finish it up before 
beginning another. 

(3) Recall is a most effective method of memorizing. 
After going over the material a certain number of times, 
one should shut the book and repeat it from memory. 
But it is a mistake to do this too soon, for it may result in 
the formation of wrong associations, which are then hard 
to get rid of. " Do not try to recall from memory at all 
until you feel little doubt that it will be quite successful. 
During the first recall consult the text at once when doubts 
arise." 

(4) Materials should be learned in the way that we expect 
to use them. A prayer that is to be repeated in unison 
with others should be memorized by repeating it rather 
than by writing it. Hymns should be learned by singing 
rather than by saying them over. 

It is not difficult for the Sunday school to fulfil these 
principles. A hymn may be memorized, for example, by 
simply singing it over as a whole several times on each of 
several consecutive Sundays, until the leader is reasonably 
sure that it is safe to try the method of recall, when he has 
the school sing it without the book. That effort will reveal 
to each pupil the places on which he needs special study, 
and in this the teacher should help him. The school will 
keep on singing it for several Sundays more, and then the 
pupils will know it. During the same Sundays, moreover, 
the school may be learning, in the same way, other hymns, 
a prayer, or Scripture passages. 

4. The church school should afford to children oppor- 
tunities FOR EXPRESSION, BOTH IN WORD AND DEED, of 

the attitudes engendered in worship, and train them in 



WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 327 

such expression. Christian testimony and Christian service 
are natural consequences of Christian worship. Through 
these we express to others the attitudes which in prayer we 
express to God. To train in testimony and service is the 
primary function of the various societies and clubs for 
children and young people which the church school associ- 
ates with the Sunday school. As children grow older, 
these active aspects of the Christian life become increasingly 
important, and assume a correspondingly larger place in 
the church's educational program. But they should never, 
from early childhood, be absent. 

A child, of course, is unable to relate his Christian expe- 
rience after the fashion of some older folk. But he is able, 
even in the kindergarten, to be trained to salute his coun- 
try's flag and to pledge allegiance to the nation for which it 
stands; and he is likewise able to be trained to express in 
words his gratitude and loyalty to God. There is no age 
at which one may not acceptably, in the measure of his 
ability and understanding, " speak a good word for Jesus 
Christ." We all have need of a larger, more natural and 
objective, less introspective and selfish conception of Chris- 
tian testimony. 

But the expression in words of Christian attitudes is not 
enough. " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth 
the will of my Father who is in heaven." No conviction 
is really our own until it has been " felt upon our pulses," 
as Keats said, and worked out in action. This is as true 
of children as of older folk. The instruction and worship 
of the church school will fall short of their full purpose 
unless they are supplemented by a program of Christian 
living and Christian service. We dare not leave the 
expression in action of what we teach to chance oppor- 
tunity. The church school, through some one of its 



328 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

agencies, should see to it that children are afforded oppor- 
tunities to love, to give and to do — in short, to share in 
the various interests and enterprises of Christian living as 
well as to be taught Christian beliefs. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. What do you understand by the church school? What is the 
relation of the Sunday school to the church school? 

2. What part may the various organizations that make up the church 
school have in training the devotional life of children? Make your 
answer as specific for each organization as you can. 

3. Do you have a service of worship in your Sunday school? Go 
over its program in light of the suggestions of this chapter to see whether 
it could be bettered in any way. If you can add suggestions better than 
those given in the chapter, do so, justifying them with reasons. 

4. Should the various departments of the Sunday school worship 
together, or separately? Give reasons for your answer. 

5. Is it practicable in your school to make the offering a part of the 
service of worship? If so, devise a plan for doing this. 

6. Should the service of worship in the Sunday school include a talk 
or story by the leader? Give reasons for your answer. 

7. What practically can your school do to instruct and drill its pupils 
in the elements of worship? Devise a program for this. 

8. What provision does your church school make for the expression 
of Christian attitudes in the activities of the pupil? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Athearn, W. S. — " The Church School." 

Danielson, F. W. — "Lessons for Teachers of Beginners " 

Hartshorne, Hugh — " Worship in the Sunday School; " "The Book 

of Worship of the Church School; " " Manual for Training in 

Worship." 
Hutchins, W. N. — " Graded Social Service for the Sunday School." 
Rankin, M.E. — "A Course for Beginners in Religious Education." 
Thomas, Marion — " Primary Programs." 



LESSON VIII 
FAMILY WORSHIP 

Family worship is the beginning of social religion. The 
father was the first priest, the hearth the first altar, the 
mother and children the first worshiping congregation, and 
the structure which sheltered them the first church. The 
home is the world's Holy of Holies. In the nurture and 
expression of true religion its place is primary and unique. 

1. Family worship is essential to the maintenance 
and propagation of religion. There is no substitute 
for it. The popular attempt to relegate worship to the 
church and Sunday school is both foolish and disastrous. 
It impoverishes the religious life of the child. He needs 
the daily training and example. It starves the soul of 
the grown-up. On the busy days, when he most needs 
spiritual food and exercise and upbuilding, he goes to 
his tasks and trials and temptations without that social 
expression of religion, which clarifies and invigorates his 
ideals, and equips him for the demands of the day. It 
maims the home. Few things, if any, will so unify the 
life of the family, incarnating the common praise and peni- 
tence and good-will; so purify and sweeten the family 
intercourse, curbing tempers, encouraging unselfishness, in- 
spiring service, and bringing forth the fruits of that Spirit, 
which are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, meek- 
ness, faithfulness and self-control, as worship in the home. 
Finally, the limiting of religious teaching to the Sunday 
school tends to make the worship of the church and Sunday 
school unnatural and difficult. This is especially true in 
the case of children. If they worship in the home, the act 
will be simple, natural, intelligible, playing a practical and 
329 



330 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

interesting part in real life. If worship is confined solely 
to the exercises of Sunday, they will not feel at home in it 
or be impressed by the power of it. On the contrary, they 
will be inclined to view it as a bit queer, something unreal 
and mysterious, a tedious and unintelligible preliminary 
to be endured patiently, not a wholesome and joyous exer- 
cise in which to find illumination and strength. Probably 
no church was so important to Philemon, or to his children 
and dependents, as the one which Paul mentions in his 
epistle, " the church in thy house." The same is true of 
family churches in the homes of today. Take worship 
out of all homes, and we shall have a constantly diminish- 
ing church attendance and look in vain for the coming 
generation of ministers. Keep it in the home, and the 
future of organized Christianity is safe. 

2. The present decline in the practise of family 
worship is undoubted. It is a lamentable fact that the 
custom belongs almost exclusively to the past. We may 
have gilded other days in our religious imaginations, uni- 
versalizing " The Cotter's Saturday Night " into a picture 
of every fireside, and so turning history into fiction. The 
golden age of worship is not behind us but before. But 
the fact remains that today in city and in country the 
practise has well-nigh vanished; and save among our 
ministers and families of the old school — and not all of 
these are among the virtuous — one looks in vain for the 
modern counterpart of Burns' exquisite picture. 

The usual explanations offered are the industrial stress, 
with the resultant hurry in the morning and weariness in 
the evening; the varying appointments, which render 
leisure for all at the same time difficult to arrange; the 
lack of support by public opinion and popular custom; 
the ignorance of fathers and mothers with respect to the 
tools of worship, and their fumbling and bungling with 



FAMILY WORSHIP 331 

them when they take them into their hands; the embarrass- 
ment and unreality experienced in what seems to be an 
awkward and abnormal situation, and the desert of dulness 
and formalism into which the rivulet of their devotion 
either sinks below the surface or vanishes as a cloud 
beyond the hills of sand. Above all is the fact that by 
many the need of family worship is not felt nor is its 
value appreciated. The members do not worship because 
they have no worship to express. 

The way of escape is apparent. Households can usually 
find a time for any act which they regard as of vital im- 
portance. Ten minutes earlier rising in the mornintr, ten 
quiet minutes out of the program for the evening, will 
furnish the opportunity. Ignorance of the ways and means 
can be cured by study. There are books dealing with 
family worship in general, admirably chosen and well ar- 
ranged selections for daily readings, collections of prayers 
which may either be used as they are or taken as models in 
devotion. The talents of parents for leading worship 
differ widely, but there is no valid reason why any father 
who will train and prepare himself for it should stumble and 
find himself humiliated before his children. If leader and 
household bring nothing to worship, they will naturally 
get nothing — sometimes worse than nothing — out of it. 
But ill-chosen Bible readings, with no explanations or 
applications, mumbled and lifeless prayers, empty-headed 
and empty-hearted singing are not inevitable. They are 
inexcusable. 

Family worship expresses itself in three main forms: 
(a) grace at table; (b) the bedside prayers of the chil- 
dren ; (c) general family prayers. 

3. Grace at table. Here are the bounties of nature. 
What could be more natural than to thank God, recogniz- 
ing Him as the wise and generous Giver of all good things? 



332 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

With this should also be expressed the recognition of God 
as the welcome and unseen Guest. 

" Come, be our guest, O Lord of good, 
And bless to us Thy gift of food" 

will serve as an example. Such prayers at the table ex- 
press the devotional life normally and naturally. They 
help to invest the meal with a wholesome but not burden- 
some sense of the sacramental, and lift it above the mere 
process of feeding. They tend to hallow what should be 
hours of happiest fellowship, to clothe the routine of daily 
life with its true divinity, to lift the table-talk above the 
level of gossip and squabbling, and to bring God into the 
friendship of the home. 

In character the grace should be short, simple and sin- 
cere, and not stilted or over-pious. It is no place for the 
elaborate and ornate, for cataloguing the attributes of 
deity, or for making the family confession. Above all, 
it must be saved from formalism, as well as from descending 
to what has been called " the purely dietetic grace," some 
pious variation of Shakespeare's 

" Now good digestion wait on appetite, 
And health on both." 

Usually the blessing may be asked by the father or mother. 
Often it is wise to allow the children to do it in turn. Per- 
haps most helpful is the custom of having all say the grace 
together, varying the forms for the different meals, and 
adopting new ones from time to time. No thoughtlessness, 
or mumbling, or hurrying should be tolerated. The quiet 
moment preceding the first words, the dignity and sincerity 
and beauty which invest the rite, all demand attention. It 
is not necessary to ask the blessing on all occasions. Wher- 
ever the observance is difficult, or the formalities of some 



FAMILY WORSHIP 333 

social gathering make it unnatural, the rite will be strength- 
ened more in the breach than in the observance. No timid- 
ity or false shame should interfere with it; but it should 
never become a kind of table fetish or a mere formal pre- 
liminary to the feast. 

4. The bedside prayers of the children. Teach- 
ing children to pray is dealt with in another chapter. 
Here it is necessary only to add some practical suggestions. 

(1) Evening prayer. The evening has its advantages 
and disadvantages. The children's bodies are weary, 
their minds sluggish, and the natural tendency is to tumble 
into bed. On the other hand, it is the normal time to 
review the day's deeds and experiences, conscious of God's 
presence, and to set the moods and thoughts, which are 
formative powers even during sleep. Whether the child 
that wakes in the morning will be loving and pure and un- 
selfish and inclined to worship, will depend partly upon the 
kind of child who goes to bed. Wise parents will guard the 
hour with reverent appreciation. Quiet, grateful thoughts; 
a child's simple talk with the great unseen Father and 
Friend ; true penitence and the promise of loyalty — these 
should characterize the petitions and send the little wor- 
shiper into dreamland with a cleansed and gladdened heart. 

(2) Morning prayer. In the morning the difficulties are 
those of late rising, hunger, and the impulse to hurry into 
the activities of the day. But where the prerequisites of 
an awakened body, an alert mind, and leisure are given, 
the time is fraught with tremendous possibilities. Souls 
may be wakened and cleansed and invigorated and clothed 
as well as bodies. The mood may be set, the higher nature 
fed, preparation made for trials and temptations, and work 
begun as the friend and fellow laborer of God. 

(3) Method. Usually some preparation for the prayer- 
time should be made, rather than to allow the children to 



334 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

hurry from their tooth-brushes to their devotions. In the 
evening review the day with them; in the morning prepare 
them for it. Remind them of certain elements which 
should enter into their prayers, and help to create the mood 
and strengthen the impulse. See to it that the act is a 
happy one and not an irksome task. In the earliest years 
it will be wise for the parents to pray with the children, 
teaching them the art and enveloping them in the prayer 
spirit. The free prayer of the father or mother may be 
followed by some memorized form, in which all join, closing 
with a brief silent time, in which the child should be en- 
couraged to formulate his own simple prayer. Kneeling 
may not be necessary, but it is certainly helpful. Posture 
not only helps to express the mood but to create it. A 
child must be made to understand that he can pray at any 
time and in any posture, and be encouraged to do so. But 
the times when he deliberately kneels will further rather 
than interfere with his readiness to turn to God in moments 
of special need, after the fashion of Nehemiah. 

5. General family prayers. These should be con- 
ducted in a manner reverent but quite informal, keeping 
the worship simple, natural, and free from all sense of re- 
pression and strain. Study and tact on the part of the 
leader will make the exercise practical, interesting and 
joyous. All that is said should be couched in language 
intelligible to each member of the group, and connected 
with the ordinary affairs of life. This does not mean 
" talking down " to the children, the kind of pious baby-ism 
in which some well-intentioned people indulge, both in 
public and in private, and which is so despised and resented 
by any healthy-minded child. Brevity is necessary. 
Prosiness and prolixity will kill any service ; and the father 
who prolongs his petitions, or attempts to preach to an un- 
willing congregation, or who indulges in what has been de- 



FAMILY WORSHIP 335 

scribed as " getting behind the mercy -seat and throwing 
stones," uttering pointed personal criticisms and accusa- 
tions in the form of prayer, need not wonder if his flock 
becomes restless and unhappy, growing up with the firm 
resolution that their homes shall never be afflicted with 
family prayers. 

So far as possible, all should share in the details of 
worship. The children may take turn in reading the selec- 
tions. These need not always be from the Bible. Jesus 
condensed a whole treatise on ethics into the story of the 
Good Samaritan, and taught the heart of his theology in 
the Parable of the Prodigal. A similar devotional use may 
be made of tales from the lives of missionaries and heroes of 
the faith; of selections from the poets, such as Whittier's 
" Eternal Goodness," Tennyson's " In Memoriam," and 
Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior"; and even of current 
events in which the hand of God is manifested. In the 
Bible readings various editions may well be used for the 
sake of variety and freshness. Psalms and great religious 
poems may be memorized and repeated in unison. 

Variety is desirable. Special days, like birthdays, 
Church festivals and holidays, may suggest new ways of 
conducting the worship. The realm of art is a rich one for 
devotional purposes. Great masterpieces, such as Ra- 
phael's " Sistine Madonna " and " The Transfiguration "; 
statues like Michaelangelo's "David"; incarnations of 
religious moods of which Millet's "Angelus " is an example; 
religious allegories in art, such as Holman Hunt's " The 
Light of the World," which Ruskin called " the most 
perfect instance of expressional purpose that the world has 
yet produced "; and photographs of the Holy Land may 
be utilized. If the worship find expression in hymns, all 
that is said in the chapter on " Worship in Music and 
Song " becomes applicable. 



336 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

The leader's prayer need not contain more than a dozen 
sentences, though for these some careful preparation should 
be made. At first it may be wise to write out such prayers, 
whether or not any attempt is made to memorize them. 
The practise will at least lift one above the common faults 
of aimlessness, dulness and floundering. Some form of 
common prayer, such as the Lord's Prayer or the collect 
for the day, may well be added. Nothing, however, will 
be so effective as the simple, sincere petitions of the leader, 
which the children recognize as his own and theirs, even 
though these are haltingly expressed. 

6. The help of teacher and pastor is needed. Rarely, 
if ever, will they have opportunity to share in the family 
worship. But they can urge its need upon thoughtless 
parents, lend them the most helpful books, introduce it by 
word and story into sermon and instruction hour on Sun- 
day, and during walks and talks with the children make the 
expression of the devotional life in the home seem both 
natural and desirable. Working together with tact and 
wisdom, minister and teacher can do much to establish 
family worship in the busiest of modern homes. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. How essential do you deem family worship to be for the main- 
tenance of religion and the perpetuation of the Christian Church? 
Give full reasons for your answer. 

2. Give reasons for the present decline in the custom of family wor- 
ship. 

3. If it is desirable that the custom be reinstated, how practically 
shall we go about it? 

4. Discuss the value and methods of grace at table. 

5. Discuss the times and methods of bedside prayer on the part of 
the children. 

6. Discuss the problem of a time for general family prayers, and 
methods which may be followed. 



FAMILY WORSHIP 337 

7. Should set forms of prayer be used in family worship, or extem- 
poraneous prayers? Give reasons for your answer. 

8. What can the teacher and the pastor do to help to establish family 
worship in the homes of the church? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bushnell, Horace — ■ " Christian Nurture." 

Cope, H. F. — ■ " Religious Education in the Family." 

Smith, W. W. — "A Complete Handbook of Religious Pictures." 
(Classified and indexed list of prints.) 
Manuals for use in family worship: 

Abbott, Lyman — " For Family Worship," 2 vols. 

Miller, J. R. — ■ " Family Prayers." 

Meyer, F. B. — " Prayers for the Hearth and Home." 

Orchard, W. E. — " The Temple." 

Rankin, I. O. — " Prayers and Thanksgivings for a Christian Year." 

Willett and Morrison — " The Daily Altar." 
Books of prayers for children: 

A brief list will be found at the close of Lesson II. In addition to 
these, such collections of rhymed prayers as John Martin's " Prayers 
for Little Men and Women " will be found helpful. These, however, 
are recommended less for direct use by boys and girls than as sugges- 
tions for the topics, language and spirit of children's prayers. 



LESSON IX 
CHURCH WORSHIP 

1. In worship the church and its children are 
mutually dependent. 

(1) The church needs the child. His presence makes the 
congregation a normal life group, where family units are 
merged into the social unit of the community. To the 
leader in worship he is an inspiration to be concrete, in- 
teresting, vital; and a warning against the prolixity and 
dulness and lack of touch with life, which tax the patience 
and deaden the spirits even of the saints. Most important 
is the probability that if the child is lost to religion, the 
man will be lost also. If in the life of the church no place 
is made for the boy — a place which he understands, and 
loves, and in which he functions — the chances are that 
no place will be taken by the man. 

(2) The child needs the church. It offers him external 
aids, living examples, and adequate training. It affords 
him the contagion and reinforcement of a larger social 
fellowship. 

2. The worship of the church affords both stimulus 
and power to children. 

(1) The very architecture of the church is an embodiment 
of worship. The suggestion of the spire, the spaciousness 
and beauty of the interior, the messages of pictured glass, 
the symbolism of font and communion table and altar — 
all speak to the child and help his own soul to utter itself. 
Not that we should rely too much upon such extraneous 
aids. Not all are privileged to have them, and saints have 
been produced without them. Moreover, care must be 
taken not to identify aesthetic enjoyment with genuine 
338 



CHURCH WORSHIP 339 

religious emotion. But the relation of environment to 
mood is not to be treated lightly. The holiness of beauty 
may well be used to awaken the beauty of holiness. It is 
a misfortune that so many churches are hindrances rather 
than aids to worship — barn-like structures, ugly and cold 
and gloomy, with too many reminiscences of theaters and 
town-halls. 

(2) The church service affords the child helpful companion- 
ships in worship. Here are earnest folk, some of them lead- 
ers in the community, to whom he looks up with a child's 
admiration, bowing before one infinitely higher and better, 
and seeking those supremely valuable possessions, which 
only the great Giver of every good and perfect gift can 
bestow. Memories of noble lives, now members of the 
choir invisible, breathe upon him. 

(3) The service furnishes instruction in worship, not 
only by word and example, but by the rites of the church, 
which sway his soul even before he understands them. 
As soon as possible he should be helped to enter into all its 
forms and ceremonies intelligently and reverently. The 
significance of posture, why we bow the head and close 
the eyes, why we rise or kneel; the meaning of the rite of 
Baptism, which he will often witness; the spiritual message 
and solemn vows involved in the Lord's Supper — all these 
should be interpreted to him. 

(4) Through the services of the church worship is organized 
for expression in social service, through which true worship 
must ever utter itself if it is to live. The child comes under 
the mighty power of collective suggestion. It helps him 
to make connection between the worship of God and the 
life of the great world about him. 

3. The adaptation of church worship to children. 

(1) Children must be furnished with an adequate motive 

for worship. It is not enough to compel them to go to 



340 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

church, wise and necessary at times as this may be. They 
ought to know why they are going, what they are to do, 
and what benefits are to be given or gained. The boy's im- 
patient, " Oh, what's the use? " is a question worth answer- 
ing. One service which he attends with alert mind and 
open heart is worth a hundred to which he is dragged as 
an unwilling victim, through which he sits with dogged 
stoicism, and from which he emerges with a sense of relief. 
The heart of this motive should be the possibility and 
practise of genuine worship. Good fellowship, joy in 
music, new knowledge, inspiration for better living are 
associated with this and may all be enlisted. But the great 
thing is the " deliberate and intelligent effort to make 
explicit to consciousness the supreme fact of religion, 
namely, the reality and nearness of God, to the end that 
God may be able to do for us, in us, and through us, and so 
for the world at large, what he desires." 1 

(2) The service must be interpreted to children. What is 
the use of the prelude? Is it an intrinsic part of the wor- 
ship? Is the anthem a concert number, or are we to wor- 
ship through it? Is the minister praying instead of the 
people, or are they to pray with him? Is the offering 
merely a begging nuisance, skilfully set so as to make it 
difficult if not impossible to keep one's money, or is it 
one of the supreme acts of worship, the symbolic consecra- 
tion and dedication of self and property and time and all 
to God? Every part of the service, every act in the ritual, 
must be interpreted and made effective, until in it and 
through it the child is enabled to commune with God. 

(3) The service must be made interesting to children. 
Without that key, the doors to their intellects and emotions 
and wills remain locked and barred. The character of the 



iW. A. Brown: Worship, p. 4. 



CHURCH WORSHIP 341 

language employed, the vividness and picturesqueness with 
which the idea is conceived, the vigor and power of the 
presentation, will all affect this. 

(4) The service must concern the child's life vitally. His 
temper and habits, his language and books, his treatment 
of the weak and disagreeable, his ideals and the objects of 
his ambitions — these are the things which must be touched 
upon and transformed. The life of the home, the work of 
the school, the ethics of his play should bear the impress of 
that hour in the church. The service must involve more 
than the abstract elements of religion; unmistakably and 
concretely and fascinatingly it must involve the child. 

(5) The external conditions of the service must be conducive 
to worship. The length should not be excessive. There 
are time limits beyond which attention is difficult. The 
seats should be comfortable. It would tax a martyr 
to worship, if the pews were so shaped as to make his back 
ache, and so high that his feet could not touch the floor. 
There may lie unsuspected supplies of grace in a cushion 
or a stool. The air should be kept fresh. A proper de- 
gree of temperature, light, and an unobstructed view of the 
minister are other seeming trifles, all of which, however, 
conduce to the possibility and effectiveness of worship. 

4. Persons upon whom responsibility rests. 

(1) Parents have the largest opportunity and the strong- 
est influence. They are the ones to arouse and develop the 
instinct of worship, to exercise it in the home, to motivate 
and make effective the act of going to church. Family 
prayers of the right sort during the week will be of im- 
measurable helpfulness. A child can no more develop 
a worshipful nature by exercising it one hour on one day 
in seven than he can develop a strong body by exercising 
it one hour on one day in seven. 



342 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

Before church the child should be prepared for worship. 
It is not enough to see that he has clean face and hands, 
and is dressed, often much to his self-consciousness and 
discomfort, in unusual clothes. What of the condition 
of his mind and heart? The object of church-going can 
be suggested and impressed, not with the dulness of a 
lecture or the piousness of a tract, but with tact and grace. 
Certain experiences may be recalled for which he and the 
family may well give thanks, certain deeds calling for 
confession and penitence, certain aims and ideals which 
need clarifying and invigorating. These may be brought 
home in some quiet personal word, or be suggested without 
moralizing in the conversation at the breakfast table. 
If the day is a special one, or if the topic of the sermon has 
been announced, there is a chance for preparation and for 
interesting family discussion. 

At church the family should sit together. Sitting regu- 
larly in the family pew begets in a child the sense of being 
at home. It is the especial place in the church where he 
belongs, from which he is missed, and where he feels natural 
and at ease. If the members of the family are early for the 
service, as it is wise to be, the Psalm and hymns may be 
read and made vital by some word or story. The child 
then knows what is coming, and can take part with more 
understanding and joy. Intelligent interest, happy antici- 
pation, appreciation of the materials of worship should be 
furthered in every way, that the boy and girl may find co- 
operation and helpfulness in what is often a difficult task. 

After church, or on Sunday evening, the thought of the 
hour may be discussed and applied. What effect should it 
have on the home life, on school work, on personal conduct, 
on events taking place in the world? Is any resultant 
deed demanded? Without this the worship and sermon 
of the morning may become as ephemeral as an April cloud. 



CHURCH WORSHIP 343 

(2) The minister of today is expected to understand the 
religion of childhood, which so many of his forbears either 
outraged or ignored. If he has been well trained, he will 
know how to make the service compact in form, full of 
spirit, and attractive to the younger members of the con- 
gregation. He will speak the language and enter into the 
thoughts and experiences of childhood. In the service of 
worship he will know how to call forth and express the 
child's gratitude, reverence and loyalty. In his prayer he 
will make conscious contact with the young as well as 
with the older members of the congregation. He will 
study the art of giving out hymns, so as to make them 
interesting and vital. In his sermons he will illustrate the 
value of a point of contact, the importance of the first 
sentence, the art of illustration, the power of the right 
use of humor as well as of pathos. No wise leader of 
worship aims exclusively at adults or is content if gray- 
beards nod approval. He will have failed lamentably 
if he does not win the cooperation and approval of the child. 

(3) The individual member of the congregation also has a 
part. The cordiality of his welcome will be effective, as 
well as his ability to correct or to endure the fault of rest- 
lessness rather than to scold and glower. The sincerity 
and beauty of his worship will be contagious. If his 
reverence is purely external, his attention wandering, his 
participation lukewarm or entirely wanting, and his life in 
the community out of harmony with the gospel which his 
lips in the forms of worship profess, he can hope to have very 
little effect, and that for the most part harmful, upon the 
life of the keenly observant child. 

(4) The teacher's time and opportunity are comparatively 
limited. But he, too, in the worship of the Sunday school, 
in class meetings and personal conversations, can interpret 
the church service and make it more effective. He can 



344 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

help parents, arousing them to their duty, and indicating 
ways and means of accomplishing it. He should keep in 
close touch with the pastor, letting him know the results 
of the services, and keeping him apprised of the needs and 
deeds of his boys and girls. 

5. Various plans have been devised for encouraging 
church attendance on the part of children. Some have 
found it practicable to combine the services of the church 
and Sunday school, thus enlisting children in the former 
and adults in the latter. The danger is that both services 
may thus be maimed. Go-to-Church Bands, Leagues of 
Worshiping Children, and the like, stimulate attendance 
by covenants, records and, in some cases, rewards. Such 
plans are not enough in themselves. They do not involve 
an adaptation of the church service to meet the needs of 
children. The danger is that the outward forms may be 
observed and the rewards gained without real growth in 
the power of worship. Junior Congregations have been 
organized, practically duplicating the organization of the 
church, with juvenile officers and services of their own. 
These services, however, are necessarily less rich and im- 
pressive than the regular worship of the church and may 
easily degenerate into mere parodies. 

The best plan, in general, is to have a children's sermon 
or story at some early point in the regular morning service. 
Such a sermon not only recognizes the presence of the 
children and helps them to feel that the service is for them; 
it interests the adults, puts the preacher into touch with 
his audience, and helps him to preach more simply and 
directly to the grown-ups. In many churches the youngest 
children withdraw after the children's sermon, and go to 
their class-rooms for instruction, stories or handwork. 
All in the Junior department or above, however, should 
remain for the whole of the service 



CHURCH WORSHIP 345 

The great essential is that the child should feel his oneness 
with the rest of the worshiping congregation. He should 
not simply get something in the hour of worship ; he should 
be made conscious that he is, with others, contributing 
something. He should come away with a sense of pro- 
prietorship as well as of pleasure and profit. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Why does the church need the children, not simply for sake of its 
future, but for sake of the present quality of its life and worship? 

2. Why do children need the church? 

3. What would be the probable results were children to be trained in 
religion at home and in Sunday school, without attendance at church 
worship? 

4. How can you make children want to go to church? 

5. What can parents do to prepare their children for attendance at 
church worship, and to render the service meaningful to them? 

6. What are the duties of the minister in connection with the church 
attendance of children? 

7. What are the duties of the Sunday-school teacher in this connec- 
tion? 

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the " merger " 
service which combines Sunday school and church into one? Of the 
Go-to-Church Band plan? Of the Junior Congregation plan? 

9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a children's 
sermon in the early part of the regular church service? What should 
be some of the characteristics of such a sermon? Would you call it 
a juvenile sermon, a sermonette, or a children's sermon? Why? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Cope, H. F. — " Religious Education in the Church." 
Farrar, J. M. — " The Junior Congregation." 
Gibson, H. W. — " Boyology," ch. 13. 
Hoben, Allan — " The Minister and the Boy." 
Hurlburt, H. W. — " The Church and Her Children." 
Kerr, H. T. — " Children's Story Sermons." 



LESSON X 
THE GOAL OF DEVOTIONAL TRAINING 

The goal at which we aim in training children to worship 
is that we may help them to become men and women 
(1) of sound individual habits of devotion, (2) members of 
the Christian Church and regular participators in its 
worship, (3) who have committed their lives to God through 
Jesus Christ and have experienced His redeeming, regenerat- 
ing grace, (4) whose worship issues in lives of Christlike 
service, doing God's work in the world, (5) and who have 
begun so to know God through worship as to have entered, 
here and now, upon eternal life. 

1. We seek to establish them in individual habits of 
devotion which are sound and permanent. A man's 
habits should be his best friends. However undevout the 
soul, worship is so natural, so helpful, so necessary, that in 
supreme moments it bursts forth in ejaculations such as 
" Thank God! " " God help me! " " God forgive me! " 
and the like. This sporadic uplift of mind and heart to 
God we seek through training to make habitual, intelligent 
and independent. Only so can its full power and joy be 
appropriated and proved. 

One's individual worship should be systematic and regu- 
lar. Exercise taken now and then is helpful; but it is 
only when it becomes a regular habit that it produces the 
exultant vigor of full health and strength. So with wor- 
ship. Its momentary expressions may serve to quicken 
the soul and to point the way to spiritual heights. But 
the achievement of full-grown spiritual manhood is possible 
only to him who lives in daily fellowship with the Father. 

Individual habits of worship should be intelligent, lifted 
346 



THE GOAL OF DEVOTIONAL TRAINING 347 

above all formalism and superstition. Some go through 
the forms of worship regularly without experiencing its 
fruits. Others practise it as a kind of charm, a bit of pious 
magic, with mistaken notions and false aims. 

These habits, moreover, should be independent. They 
should not rely upon the support of popular custom or 
environmental aids. They should command rather than 
bow to the words and actions of others as well as personal 
whims and moods. The dormitory scene in " Tom Brown 
at Rugby " illustrates both how easy it is to drift away 
from worship through the tendency while in Rome to do as 
the Romans do, and how strong the power of independent 
habit is, not only to hold Arthur but to awaken Tom and 
to transform Rome. 

2. We seek to induct children into the worship and 
fellowship of the church. Individual habit needs 
social reinforcement. It is not enough that they be trained 
to understand and appreciate the worship of others. They 
must be more than auditors and spectators. We should 
equip them to share in public worship with heart and 
soul and strength and mind. One phase of the modern 
amusement problem has been diagnosed as " specta- 
toritis." Something like this is the trouble with some 
congregations. Too many, instead of obeying the words of 
the Psalmist, 

" Let the people praise thee, O God, 
Let all the people praise thee," 

are content to look on and listen while one man in the 
pulpit and four people in the choir serve as substitutes for 
them. Our boys and girls must be saved from this practise 
of worshiping by proxy. No doubt something is gained 
simply by being in church, just as some recreation may be 
found in watching a ball game. But the full realization 
belongs only to him who participates. The rewards of 



348 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

worship are bestowed only on the soul which actively com- 
munes with God. 

3. We seek to bring the child, in due time, definitely 

TO COMMIT HIS LIFE TO GOD THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, AND 
TO EXPERIENCE HlS REDEEMING, REGENERATING GRACE. 

At some time or other in adolescent years, there is likely 
to come a spiritual crisis. The Spirit of God is manifested 
with power, and the child becomes conscious that some 
permanent decision for life must be made. Shall I conse- 
crate myself to God and His kingdom, or to myself and to 
my own kingdom? Shall I accept Christ as the Master 
and Saviour of my life, and obey His command, " Follow 
Me "; or shall I attempt to save my own life, with whatever 
content I may fill that phrase, and go where I please? 
Are love and truth and righteousness to be the inspiration 
and aim of all my endeavors, or shall I pamper appetite, 
grasp greedily at the whims and suggestions of unbridled 
passions and unholy ambitions, and seek the immediate 
satisfaction of my desires, whether or not these lead me 
into lovelessness and falsehood and sin? 

The normal response of the child, whose earlier training 
has been what it should be, is the experience and decision 
called conversion. The experience is the gracious work of 
the Holy Spirit; the decision is the response of the awakened 
child of God. Both are necessary. It is impossible to 
tell where one leaves off and the other begins. The classic 
description is that given in Paul's injunction: "Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is 
God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for 
his good pleasure." The child becomes conscious of a 
Power not himself working within him and about him. 
He sees clearly that toward which his individual habits of 
worship as well as the services of the church have been 
tending. He puts himself publicly and whole-heartedly 



THE GOAL OF DEVOTIONAL TRAINING 349 

in the ranks of the followers of Jesus. For himself the goal 
of his ambition is full-grown Christian manhood. For the 
world all his faculties and powers are consecrated to that 
Kingdom in which the Fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man are realized. Worship blossoms into a su- 
preme act. Customs practised under the tutelage of others 
during childhood culminate in a life inspired and empowered 
by the Spirit of God. 

The nature of this crisis will be determined by various 
circumstances — age, temperament, home-training and 
previous moral conduct. In some it is marked and sudden ; 
in others it is as gradual and imperceptible as the coming of 
the spring. The result in any case is the birth from above, 
the conscious and definite experience of regeneration. 
Through it God is enabled to " pour His life and energy 
into human souls, even as the sun can flood the world with 
light and resident forces, or as the sea can send its refreshing 
tides into all the bays and inlets of the coast, or as the 
atmosphere can pour its life-giving supplies into the foun- 
tains of the blood in the meeting-place of the lungs; or, 
better, as the mother fuses her spirit into the spirit of the 
responsive child, and lays her mind on him until he be- 
lieves in her belief." 1 Toward this goal all the worship of 
childhood should tend ; from it should spring the wealth of 
thoughts and emotions, which develop and ennoble youth, 
and fructify and glorify the life of the world. 

4. Naturally and necessarily the divine life thus entered 
into by the individual must also be realized in society. 
Worship should direct and vitalize the whole program 
of active Christian service. Prayer must put itself 
into harness until the salvation of the individual has been 
crowned by the achievement of the kingdom of God. The 
worshiper, who on Sunday chanted, " O give thanks unto 

'Rufus M. Jones; The Inner Life. p. 99. 



350 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

the Lord, for He is good," must on Monday express that 
gratitude in grateful deeds. The worker, who prayed, 
" Give us this day our daily bread," must help to answer 
that prayer either by raising wheat or by earning his right 
to it. The reverence at the altar, if real, will reveal itself 
in reverence for God's laws and God's children. The 
repentance of the closet will be manifested in confession 
and reparation and righteous living. 

This is natural for children, whose lives and interests 
center less in thought and emotion than in activity. A 
child is so made that he must literally " work out his own 
salvation," not think it out merely. Parents and teachers 
should see to it that the services of worship in the church 
and Sunday school are supplemented and realized in deeds 
that serve on the other days of the week. What a child 
prays, he should practise; what he sings, he should live. 

This brings about the normal alternation of work and 
worship. No man can worship all the time. To be sure, 
the spirit of worship should permeate and glorify all his 
living. There is a very true sense in which Paul's exhorta- 
tion to " pray without ceasing " is not only ideal but 
practical. Life itself becomes a prayer. All our working 
and playing and loving are carried on with a sense of God 
in the background of consciousness. Our wills are one 
with His, our thoughts revert to Him, our activities are 
directed by Him. In this sense worship, like breathing, 
should be coextensive with life. 

But when the monk attempts to worship constantly, 
he fails. To keep perpetually praying is impossible and 
undesirable. Conscious worship is the means by which we 
renew depleted spiritual energies. Once the reservoirs 
of power are full, we need to direct them into the ordinary 
channels of life. In worship we prepare for work; in 
work we earn the right to worship. Each is incomplete 



THE GOAL OF DEVOTIONAL TRAINING 351 

without the other. At times each is merged into the other. 
But the natural relation is an alternation, each supplement- 
ing the other in the program of a well-balanced life. 

No one can judge as to just when and just how much 
another soul should worship. It is like eating and playing 
and sleeping. We find out by experiment. The divine 
law, justified by the experience of centuries, is the setting 
apart of one day in seven on whose program worship should 
be given a controlling part. Practically, humanity cannot 
live at its highest and best without Sunday. And a true 
Sunday means more than rest, recreation and home-life 
for the bread-winner; it means that social worship through 
which all gain rest and recreation and home-life for the soul. 

The program for Monday, also, has need of a place for 
worship. We can no more relegate worship to one day in 
seven than we can concentrate eating and sleeping on one 
day in seven. Whenever the springs of life begin to fail, 
whenever our whole being faints and clamors for ethical 
and spiritual renewal, we shall follow the Master into the 
quiet of a place apart for the uplift and invigoration of 
conscious communion with God. Morning and evening 
may be the best times for this. Quite as needful, however, 
will be those stray moments on the street, in the home, amid 
the distractions of school and office and factory, when 
quick as thought the mind turns to God, refers life's tasks 
and problems to Him, and draws upon Him for illumina- 
tion, guidance and strength. 

5. The ultimate goal of training in worship is 
eternal life. Through the daily practise of the presence 
of God one may begin the life that is life indeed right here 
and now. By means of Christian living and Christian 
labor, which are a more true expression of prayer than mere 
words, however devout, the kingdom of God may come on 
earth even as in heaven. Ours is a religion of salvation, 



352 TRAINING THE DEVOTIONAL LIFE 

individual and social. To know God, as Jesus Christ has 
made it possible for us to know Him, is to enter upon life 
eternal. 

It is your privilege, as parent or teacher, to help bring 
the soul of a child into possession of his birthright of im- 
mortality in sonship to God. We have studied together 
some ways whereby you may plan to train the devo- 
tional life of your children to this blessed end. Need it be 
added that all methods are doomed to fail unless they are 
made vital by the influence of your own character and 
practise? Is your own devotional life all that it can be and 
ought to be? If not, begin with yourself. The counsels 
of this book are for you as well as for your children. 

QUESTIONS FOR INVESTIGATION AND DISCUSSION 

1. Why should one's worship be made a matter of regular and sys- 
tematic habit? 

2. Give examples, from your own experience or from observation, of 
how one's habit of worship may be influenced by surrounding customs 
or conditions. 

3. What do you understand by conversion? Is the process alike in 
all persons? Give reasons for your answer. 

4. What do you understand by regeneration? What did Jesus mean 
when he said, " Ye must be born again " ? 

5. What is meant by the alternation of work and worship? What 
did Paul mean by his counsel to " Pray without ceasing " ? 

6. Should all persons combine work and worship in the same propor- 
tions? What is the function of the Christian Lord's Day? 

7. Is it possible to worship God on the street, or while busied in 
office or factory? Give reasons for your answer. 

8. What is the relation of the teacher's or parent's own devotional 
liferto the training of the^devotional life of the child? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Cope, Henry F. — " Religious Education in the Church." 
Joseph, Oscar L. — " Essentials of Evangelism." 
McKinley, Charles E. — " Educational Evangelism." 
Miller, J. R. — " The Devotional Life of the Sunday School Teacher." 



